ZADOC      PINE 

AND    OTHER   STORIES 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


AIRS  FROM  ARCADY  AND  ELSE 
WHERE.  i6mo $1.25 

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THE  STORY  OF  A  NEW  YORK 
HOUSE.  Illustrated  by  A.  B.  Frost. 
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ZADOC  PINE  AND  OTHER  STORIES. 
I  2mo,  paper, 50 


ZADOC     PINE 


AND   OTHER   STORIES 


BY 

H.  C.  BUNNER 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1891 


COPYRIGHT,  1891,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Press  of  1.  J.  Little  &  Co. 
Astor  Place,  New  York 


TO 
A.  L. 


2041546 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

THE  ZADOC  PINE  LABOR  UNION I 

NATURAL  SELECTION  :    A  ROMANCE  OF  CHELSEA  VIL 
LAGE  AND  EAST  HAMPTON  TOWN, 39 

CASPERL, 125 

A  SECOND-HAND  STORY, 139 

MRS.  TOM'S  SPREE, 162 

SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM, 212 


THE  ZADOC  PINE  LABOR  UNION. 


\WHEN  Zadoc  Pine's  father  died,  Zadoc 
found  himself  alone  in  the  North  Woods, 
three  miles  from  Silsbee's  Station,  twenty-one 
years  old,  six  foot  one  inch  high,  in  perfect 
health,  with  a  good  appetite.  He  had  gone 
to  school  one  summer ;  he  could  read  and 
write  fairly  well,  and  could  cipher  very  well. 
He  had  gone  through  the  history  of  the  United 
States,  and  he  had  a  hazy  idea  of  geography. 
When  his  father's  estate  was  settled  up,  and 
all  debts  paid,  Zadoc  owned  two  silver  dollars, 
the  clothes  he  stood  in,  one  extra  flannel  shirt, 
done  up  in  a  bandanna  handkerchief  in  com 
pany  with  a  razor,  a  comb,  a  tooth-brush,  and 
two  collars.  Besides  these  things  he  had  a  six- 
inch  clasp-knife  and  an  old-fashioned  muzzle- 
loading  percussion-cap  rifle. 

Old  man  Pine  had  been  a  good  Adirondack 
guide  in  his  time ;  but  for  the  last  six  years  he 
had  been  laid  up,  a  helpless  cripple,  with  in 
flammatory  rheumatism.  He  and  his  son — old 


2  THE  ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION. 

Pine's  wife  had  died  before  the  boy  was  ten 
years  old — lived  in  their  little  house  in  the 
woods.  The  father  had  some  small  savings, 
and  the  son  could  earn  a  little  as  a  sort  of 
auxiliary  guide.  He  got  a  job  here  and  there 
where  some  party  needed  an  extra  man.  Zadoc 
was  an  excellent  shot ;  but  he  was  no  fisherman, 
and  he  had  little  knowledge  of  the  streams  and 
ponds  further  in  the  woods. 

So,  when  the  old  father  was  gone,  when 
Zadoc  had  paid  the  last  cent  of  his  debt  to  the 
storekeeper  at  Silsbee's — the  storekeeper  taking 
the  almost  worthless  shanty  of  the  Pines  in  part 
payment — when  he  had  settled  with  Silsbee's 
saw-mill  for  the  boards  out  of  which  he  himself 
had  made  his  father's  coffin,  Zadoc  Pine  stood 
on  the  station-platform  and  wondered  what  was 
going  to  become  of  him,  or,  rather,  as  he  put  it, 
"what  he  was  a-going  for  to  do  with  himself." 

There  was  no  employment  for  him  at  Sils 
bee's  Station.  He  might,  perhaps,  get  a  job  as 
guide  ;  but  it  was  doubtful,  and  he  had  seen 
too  much  of  the  life.  It  seemed  to  him  a 
waste  of  energy.  To  live  as  his  father  had 
lived,  a  life  of  toil  and  exposure,  a  dreary  ex 
istence  of  hard  work  and  small  profit,  and  to 
end  at  last  penniless  and  in  debt  for  food,  was 
no  part  of  Zadoc's  plans.  He  knew  from  the 
maps  in  the  old  geography  that  the  whole  Ad- 


THE  ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION.  3 

irondack  region  was  only  a  tiny  patch  on  the 
map  of  the  United  States.  Somewhere  outside 
there  he  was  sure  he  would  find  a  place  for 
himself. 

He  knew  that  the  little  northern  railroad  at 
his  feet  connected  with  the  greater  roads  to 
the  south.  But  the  great  towns  of  the  State 
were  only  so  many  names  to  him.  His  eyes 
were  not  turned  toward  New  York.  He  had 
"  guided  "  for  parties  of  New  York  men,  and  he 
had  learned  enough  to  make  himself  sure  that 
New  York  was  too  large  for  him.  "  I  wouldn't 
be  no  more  good  down  there,"  he  said  to  him 
self,  "  then  they  be  up  here.  'Tain't  my  size." 

Yet  somewhere  he  must  go.  He  had 
watched  the  young  men  who  employed  him, 
and  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  two  things : 
First,  these  young  men  had  money ;  second, 
he  could  get  it  if  they  could.  One  had  jok 
ingly  shown  him  a  hundred-dollar  bill,  and  had 
asked  him  to  change  it.  There  was  some  part 
of  the  world,  then,  where  people  could  be  free 
and  easy  with  hundred-dollar  bills.  Why  was 
not  that  the  place  for  him  ?  "  They  know  a  lot 
more'n  I  do,"  he  said  ;  "  but  they  hed  to  Tarn 
it  fust-off  ;  an'  I  guess  ef  their  brains  was  so 
everlastin'  much  better'n  mine  they  wouldn't 
souse  'em  with  whiskey  the  way  they  do." 

As  Zadoc  Pine  stood  on  the  platform,  feeling 


4  THE   ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION. 

of  the  two  silver  dollars  in  his  pocket,  he  saw 
the  wagon  drive  up  from  Silsbee's  saw-mill  with 
a  load  of  timber,  and  old  Mr.  Silsbee  on  top  of 
the  load.  There  was  a  train  of  flat  cars  on  the 
siding,  where  it  had  been  lying  for  an  hour, 
waiting  for  the  up-train.  When  the  wagon  ar 
rived,  Mr.  Silsbee,  the  station-master,  and  the 
engineer  of  the  train  had  a  three-cornered  col 
loquy  of  a  noisy  sort.  The  station-master  after 
awhile  withdrew,  shrugging  his  shoulders  with 
the  air  of  a  man  who  declines  to  engage  further 
in  a  profitless  discussion. 

"What's  the  matter?"  asked  Zadoc. 

"That  there  lumber  of  Silsbee's,"  said  the 
station-master,  who  was  a  New  England  man. 
"The  durned  old  cantankerous  cuss  is  kickin' 
because  he  can't  ship  it.  Why,  this  here  train's 
so  short  o'  hands  they  can't  hardly  run  it  ez  'tis, 
let  alone  loadin'  lumber." 

"  Where's  it  goin'  to?  "  inquired  Zadoc,  "  an' 
why's  this  train  short  o'  hands?" 

"Goin'  to  South  Ridge,  Noo  Jersey,"  said 
the  station-master,  "  or  'twould  be  ef  'twan't 
for  this  blame  strike.  Can't  get  nobody  to 
load  it." 

"  Where's  South  Ridge  ?  "  was  Zadoc's  next 
inquiry. 

"  'Bout  ten  or  twenty  miles  from  Noo  York." 

"  Country?  " 


THE   ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION.  5 

"Country  'nough,  I  guess.     Ask  Silsbee." 

Zadoc  walked  after  Mr.  Silsbee,  who  was  by 
this  time  marching  back  towards  the  saw-mill, 
red  in  the  face  and  puffing  hard.  Zadoc  got  in 
front  of  him. 

"  Mornin',  Mr.  Silsbee,"  he  said. 

"  Mornin' — er — who  are  ye  ?  Oh,  Enoch 
Pine's  boy,  hey?  Mornin',  young  man — I 
hain't  got  no  time " 

"  How  much  is  it  wuth  to  you  to  get  them 
sticks  to  where  they're  goin'  to  ?  "  demanded 
Zadoc. 

"Wuth?  It's  wuth  hundreds  of  dollars  to 
me,  young  man — it's  wuth — 

"  Is  it  wuth  a  five-dollar  bill  ?  "  Zadoc  inter 
rupted. 

"  Whatyermean  ?  " 

"  You  know  me,  Squire  Silsbee.  If  it's  wuth 
a  five-dollar  bill  to  get  them  timbers  down  to 
South  Ridge,  New  Jersey,  an'  you  can  get 
that  engineer  to  take  me  on  as  an  extra  hand 
that  far,  I'll  load  'em  on,  go  down  there  with 
'em,  an'  unload  'em.  All  I  want's  five  dollars 
for  my  keep  while  I'm  a-goin'." 

"You  don't  want  t'  go  to  South  Ridge?" 
gasped  Mr.  Silsbee. 

"  Yaas,  I  do." 

"  Whut  fer?" 

"  Fer  my  health,"  said   Zadoc.     The  squire 


O  THE  ZADOC  PINE   LABOR    UNION. 

looked  at  the  muscular,  sunburnt  animal  be 
fore  him,  and  he  had  to  grin. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  "  'tain't  none  o'  my  business. 
You  come  along,  an'  I'll  see  if  that  pig-headed 
fool  will  let  you  work  your  way  down." 

One  hour  later  Zadoc  was  rolling  southward 
on  a  flat  car,  and  learning  how  to  work  brakes 
as  he  went.  It  was  a  wonderful  pleasure-trip 
to  him.  The  work  was  nothing  ;  he  was  strong 
as  a  bull-moose  ;  and  he  was  simply  en 
chanted  to  see  the  great  world  stringing  itself 
out  along  the  line  of  the  railroad  track.  He  had 
never  in  his  life  seen  a  settlement  larger  than 
Silsbee's,  and  when  the  villages  turned  into 
towns  and  the  towns  into  cities,  he  was  so 
much  interested  that  he  lost  his  appetite.  He 
asked  the  train  hands  all  the  questions  he  could 
think  of,  and  acquired  some  information,  al 
though  they  did  not  care  to  talk  about  much 
except  the  great  strike  and  the  probable 
action  of  the  unions. 

*  *  *  #  %  * 

It  was  about  six  o'clock  of  a  cloudy  May 
evening  when  Zadoc  Pine  jumped  off  the  car 
at  South  Ridge  and  helped  to  unload  Mr.  Sils 
bee's  cargo  of  timber.  The  brakeman  on  his 
end  of  the  train  said,  "  So  long  !  "  Zadoc  said, 
"  So  long !  "  and  the  train  whirled  on  to  New 
York. 


THE  ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION.  / 

Zadoc  stood  by  the  track  and  gazed  some 
what  dismally  after  his  travelling  home.  He 
was  roused  from  something  like  a  brown  study 
when  the  station-master  of  South  Ridge  hailed 
him. 

"  Hi,  country  !  where  are  you  ?  " 

"  Is  this  New  Jersey?  "  asked  Zadoc. 

"  Yes.     What  do  you  think  it  was — Ohio?  " 

Zadoc  had  heard  something  of  the  national 
reputation  of  the  State  from  his  late  com 
panions. 

"  Well,"  he  reflected,  "  I  must  be  pretty  mil 
dewed  when  a  Jerseyman  hollers  '  country  '  at 
me." 

Zadoc  made  this  reflection  aloud.  The  sta 
tion-master  walked  off  with  a  growl,  and  two 
or  three  gentlemen  who  were  talking  on  the 
platform  laughed  quietly.  Zadoc  walked  up 
to  one  of  them. 

"  I  brung  that  there  lumber  down  here,"  he 
said  ;  "  I'd  like  to  know  who  owns  it.  Maybe 
there's  more  job  in  it  fer  me  ?  " 

"  I  don't  think  so,"  one  of  the  gentlemen 
said,  in  a  rather  cold  and  distant  way.  "  That 
is  for  the  new  station,  and  the  railway  com 
pany  has  its  own  hands." 

Zadoc  looked  all  about  him.  There  was  no 
town  to  be  seen.  He  was  among  the  foot-hills 
of  the  Orange  Mountains,  and  on  all  sides  of 


O  THE   ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION. 

him  were  undulating  slopes,  some  open,  some 
wooded.  He  saw  old-fashioned  farm-houses, 
and  many  more  modern  dwellings,  of  what 
seemed  to  him  great  size  and  beauty,  although 
they  were  only  ordinary  suburban  cottages  of 
the  better  sort.  But  nowhere  could  he  see 
shops  or  factories.  There  was  a  quarry  high 
up  on  one  of  the  slopes,  but  that  was  all.  It 
looked  like  a  poor  place  in  which  to  seek  for 
work. 

"  Well,"  he  remarked,  "  maybe  there's  some- 
wheres  where  I  can  put  up  fer  to-night." 

"  What  sort  of  place  ?  "  the  gentleman  asked. 

"  Well,"  said  Zadoc,  "  some  sort  of  inn,  or 
tavern,  or  suthin',  where  I  c'n  get  about  ten 
cents'  wuth  o'  style  an'  ninety  cents'  wruth  o' 
sleep  an'  feed." 

Two  of  the  gentlemen  laughed  ;  but  the  one 
to  whom  Zadoc  had  spoken,  who  seemed  a 
dignified  and  haughty  person,  answered  in  a 
chilly  and  discouraging  way  : 

"  Go  down  this  street  to  the  cross-roads,  and 
ask  for  Bryan's.  That  is  where  the  quarrymen 
board." 

He  turned  away,  and  went  in  the  other 
direction  with  his  companions.  Zadoc  Pine 
shouldered  his  rifle,  picked  up  the  handker 
chief  which  held  his  other  belongings,  and 
trudged  down  the  road  under  the  new  foliage 


THE   ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION.  9 

of  the  great  chestnuts.  He  came  in  a  little 
while  to  the  cross-roads,  where  there  were  four 
huddled  blocks  of  shabby  square  houses. 
There  was  a  butcher's  shop,  a  grocer's,  a  bak 
er's,  three  or  four  dririking-places,  and  Bryan's. 
This  was  the  forlornest  house  of  all.  There 
was  a  dirty  attempt  at  an  ice-cream  saloon  in 
the  front,  and  in  the  rear  was  a  large  room 
with  a  long  table,  where  the  quarrymen  took 
their  meals.  When  Zadoc  arrived,  the  quarry- 
men  were  sitting  on  the  sidewalk  in  front  of 
the  house  with  their  feet  in  the  gutter.  They 
were  smoking  pipes  and  talking  in  a  dull  way 
among  themselves.  By  the  time  that  Zadoc 
had  bargained  for  a  room,  with  supper  and 
breakfast,  for  one  dollar,  supper  was  announced, 
and  they  all  came  in.  Zadoc  did  not  like 
either  his  companions  or  his  supper. 

He  did  not  know  enough  of  the  distinguish 
ing  marks  of  various  nationalities  to  guess  at 
the  nativity  of  these  men  ;  but  he  knew  that 
they  were  not  Americans.  He  tried  to  talk  to 
the  man  nearest  him,  but  the  man  did  not 
want  to  talk.  Zadoc  asked  him  about  the 
work  and  the  wages  at  the  quarry. 

"  It's  a  dollar-twinty-five  a  day,"  the  quarry- 
man  said,  sullenly ;  "  an'  it's  a  shame  !  The 
union  ain't  doin'  nothin'  fer  us.  An'  there 
ain't  no  more  quarrymen  wanted.  There's 


IO          THE   ZADOC  PINE   LABOR    UNION. 

Milliken,  he  owns  the  carrts  ;  mebbc  he'll  take 
a  driver.  But  if  ye  want  a  job,  ye'll  have  to 
see  McCuskey,  the  diligate." 

"What  might  a  diligate  be?"  inquired  the 
young  man  from  the  North  Woods. 

"  The  mon  what  runs  the  union.  Ye're  a 
union  mon,  ain't  ye?" 

"  Guess  not,"  said  Zadoc. 

"Thin  ye'd  best  be  out  of  this,"  the  man 
said,  rising  rudely  and  lumbering  off. 

"  Guess  I  won't  wake  McCuskey  up  in  the 
mornin',"  Zadoe  thought ;  "  dollar-'n'-a-quar- 
ter's  big  money  ;  but  I  don't  want  no  sech 
work  ez  quarryin',  ef  it  makes  a  dead  log  of  a 
man  like  that." 

He  finished  his  meal  and  went  into  the 
street.  Bryan  was  leaning  against  the  door- 
jamb,  conversing  with  a  tall  man  on  the  side 
walk.  It  was  the  gentleman  whom  Zadoc  had 
seen  at  the  station. 

"  You  can't  get  him  this  week,  Mr.  Thorn- 
dyke,"  said  Bryan.  "  Bixby's  ahead  of  you, 
and  the  Baxters.  They  been  waitin'  three 
weeks  for  him.  Fact  is,  Andy  don't  want  to 
do  no  more  th'n  two  days'  work  in  a  week." 

"  Can't  you  think  of  any  other  man  ?  "  Mr. 
Thorndyke  queried,  irritably.  "  Here  I  have 
been  waiting  for  this  fellow  a  whole  fortnight 
to  dig  a  half-dozen  beds  in  my  garden,  and  I 


THE  ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION.          II 

don't  believe  he  intends  to  come.  There  ought 
to  be  somebody  who  wants  the  job.  Can't 
some  of  these  men  here  come  after  hours,  or 
before,  and  do  it  ?  I  pay  well  enough  for  the 
work." 

There  was  no  movement  among  the  quarry- 
men,  who  were  once  more  sitting  on  the  edge 
of  the  sidewalk,  with  their  feet  in  the  gutter. 

"  I  don't  know  of  no  one,  Mr.  Thorndyke," 
said  Bryan,  and  Mr.  Thorndyke  turned  back 
up  the  road. 

"  Diggin'  garden-beds  ?  "  mused  Zadoc.  "  I 
ain't  never  dug  no  garden-beds  ;  but  I  hev  dug 
fer  bait,  'n'  I  guess  the  principle's  the  same — 
on'y  you  don't  hev  to  sort  out  the  wums."  He 
walked  rapidly  after  Mr.  Thorndyke,  and  over- 
toxok  him. 

"  Don't  you  want  me  to  dig  them  beds  fer 
you  ?  "  he  inquired. 

^Can  you  dig  them?"  Mr.  Thorndyke 
looked  surprised  and  suspicious. 

"  That's  what  I'm  here  fer." 

"  Do  you  know  where  my  house  is  ?  The 
third  on  the  hill  ?  " 

"  Third  she  is,"  said  Zadoc. 

"  Come  up  to-morrow  morning." 

Zadoc  went  back  to  Bryan's  and  went  to  bed 
in  a  narrow,  close  room,  overlooking  an  ill-kept 
back  yard.  It  was  dirty,  it  was  cheerless ; 


12          THE   ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION. 

worst  of  all,  it  was  airless.  Zadoc's  mind  was 
made  up.  "  Ef  this  suits  quarrymen,  quarryin' 
don't  suit  me." 

****** 
He  had  a  bad  night,  and  arose  at  five  the 
next  morning.  At  six  he  went  to  a  breakfast 
that  was  worse  than  the  supper  had  been. 
Zadoc  had  been  used  to  poor  and  coarse  fare 
all  his  life,  but  there  was  something  about  this 
flabby,  flavorless,  greasy,  boarding-house  food 
that  went  against  him.  He  ate  what  he  could, 
and  then  walked  up  the  road  toward  Mr.  Thorn- 
dyke's  house.  As  he  went  higher  up  the  hill 
he  saw  that  the  houses  at  the  cross-roads  were 
very  much  unlike  their  surroundings.  To  a 
man  born  and  brought  up  in  the  skirts  of  the 
North  Woods,  this  New  Jersey  village  seemed 
a  very  paradise.  The  green  lawns  amazed 
him ;  the  neat  fences,  the  broad  roads,  the 
great  trees,  standing  clear  of  underbrush,  were 
all  marvels  in  his  eyes.  And  besides  the  com 
fortable  farm-houses  and  the  mansions  of  the 
rich  and  great,  he  saw  many  humbler  dwellings 
of  a  neat  and  well-ordered  sort.  From  one  of 
these  a  pretty  girl,  standing  in  the  doorway, 
with  her  right  arm  in  a  sling,  looked  at  him 
with  curiosity,  and  what  Zadoc  took  to  be 
kindly  interest.  It  was  really  admiration.  If 
Zadoc  had  ever  thought  to  inquire,  he  would 


THE  ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION.          13 

have  learned  that  he  was  not  only  big,  but 
good-looking. 

He  lingered  a  little  as  he  passed  this  place, 
to  admire  it.  The  house  had  two  stories,  of 
which  the  lower  was  of  rough  stone,  brightly 
whitewashed.  In  front  was  a  bit  of  a  garden, 
in  which  green  things  were  sprouting.  In  the 
little  woodshed,  to  one  side,  a  neat  old  woman, 
with  pretty,  white  hair,  was  cutting  kindling- 
wood.  The  girl  in  the  doorway  was  very 
pretty,  if  her  arm  was  in  a  sling.  Zadoc 
looked  it  all  over  with  entire  approval.  "That's 
my  size,"  he  thought. 

He  found  no  one  awake  at  Mr.  Thorndyke's 
house,  and  he  sat  on  the  front  steps  until  half- 
past  seven  o'clock,  when  Mr.  Thorndyke  him 
self  came  out  to  get  the  morning  paper,  which 
had  been  left  on  the  front  porch.  Zadoc  had 
read  it  through  already. 

"You  are  early,"  was  Mr.  Thorndyke's 
greeting. 

"  I  was  earlier  when  I  come,"  returned 
Zadoc.  "  Been  here  more'n  an  hour.  Awful 
waste  o'  God's  sunlight,  when  there's  work 
a-waitin'." 

"  Well,"  said  Mr.  Thorndyke  coldly,  as  he 
led  the  way  around  the  corner  of  the  house, 
"  here  are  the  beds.  The  lines  are  pegged  out. 
I  suppose  there  is  about  a  day's  work  on  them, 


14          THE  ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION. 

and  I  will  pay  you  at  the  usual  rate  for  gar 
deners'  work,  hereabouts — a  dollar  and  a  half." 

"  Yaas,"  said  Zadoc,  as  he  looked  over  the 
territory  staked  out,  "  I  see.  But  if  this  job's 
wuth  a  dollar-'n'-a-half  to  you,  I'd  ruther  take 
it  ez  a  job,  at  them  riggers.  I  can  fool  away  a 
day  on  it,  ef  that'll  please  you  better;  but  I'd 
ruther  git  through  with  it  when  I  git  through, 
ef  it's  all  the  same  to  you." 

"  I  don't  care  how  you  do  it,"  Mr.  Thorn- 
dyke  said,  "so  long  as  it  is  done,  and  done 
properly,  when  I  come  home  to-night  at  six." 

"You  needn't  put  off  coming  home  for  me," 
was  Zadoc's  cheerful  assurance. 

Then  he  proceeded  to  ask  Mr.  Thorndyke 
a  number  of  questions  about  the  manner  in 
which  the  beds  were  to  be  dug.  Mr.  Thorn- 
dyke  knit  his  brows. 

"  Haven't  you  ever  dug  beds  before  ?  " 

"  I  never  dug  no  beds  fer  you.  When  I  do 
work  fer  a  man  I  do  it  to  suit  him,  an'  not  to 
suit  some  other  feller." 

"  How  do  I  know  that  you  can  do  the  work 
at  all?" 

"You  don't,"  said  Zadoc,  frankly ;  "but  ef 
'tain't  satisfactory  you  don't  hev  to  pay. 
Thefs  cheap  fer  a  hole  in  the  ground." 

"  Have  you  a  spade?"  Mr.  Thorndyke  de 
manded,  and  his  manner  was  depressingly  stern. 


THE   ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION.          15 

"  No,  I  ain't,"  said  Zadoc,  "  but  I'll  git  one." 
****** 

Zadoc  walked  up  to  the  next  house  on  the 
hill,  which  was  a  large  and  imposing  structure. 
It  belonged  to  the  richest  man  in  South  Ridge, 
and  the  richest  man  was  sitting  on  his  front 
porch. 

"  Got  a  spade  to  lend  ?  "  Zadoc  asked. 

"  What  do  you  want  it  for  ?  "  the  richest  man 
demanded. 

"  Fer  a  job  down  there  to  Squire  Thorn- 
dyke's,  next  door,"  Zadoc  informed  him. 

"  Did  Mr.  Thorndyke  send  you?" 

"No,  I  come  myself." 

The  millionaire  of  South  Ridge  stared  at 
Zadoc  for  a  moment,  and  then  arose,  walked 
around  the  house,  and  presently  reappeared 
with  a  spade.  "  When  you  bring  this  back," 
he  said,  "  give  it  to  the  man  in  the  stable." 

"  Much  obliged !  "  said  Zadoc. 

The  beds  were  all  dug  before  three  o'clock, 
and  Mrs.  Thorndyke  came  out  and  expressed 
her  approval.  Zadoc  took  off  his  hat  and 
bowed,  as  his  father  had  told  him  he  should 
do  when  he  met  a  lady. 

"I  see,"  he  remarked,  "you've  got  some 
mornin'-glories  set  out  alongside  o'  the  house. 
Ef  you'll  get  me  a  ladder  an'  some  string,  an' 
nails  an'  a  hammer,  I'll  train  'em  up  fer  yer." 


1 6          THE   ZADOC  PINE   LABOR    UNION, 

Mrs.  Thorndyke  looked  doubtful. 

"  I  don't  know  what  arrangement  my  hus 
band  has  made  with  you,"  she  began;  but 
Zadoc  interrupted  her. 

"There  ain't  nothin'  to  pay  fer  that,  ma'am. 
One  pertater  on  top  'f  the  measure  don't  break 
no  one,  and  it  kinder  holds  trade." 

The  ladder  and  the  other  things  were  brought 
out,  and  Zadoc  climbed  up  and  fastened  the 
strings  as  he  had  seen  them  arranged  for  the 
morning-glories  that  climbed  up  the  walls  of 
Squire  Silsbee's  house. 

While  he  was  on  the  ladder,  the  rich  man 
next  door,  whose  name,  by  the  way,  was  Vre- 
denburg,  came  down  and  leaned  on  the  fence 
and  talked  to  Mrs.  Thorndyke. 

"  Getting  the  place  in  good  trim,  aren't 
you  ?  " 

"  Trying  to,"  said  Mrs.  Thorndyke.  "  There 
are  ever  so  many  things  to  do.  I've  sent  to 
three  men  already,  to  cart  my  ash-heap  away, 
and  they  won't  come.  There's  a  wandering 
gardener  here  who  has  just  dug  my  beds  ;  if  it 
hadn't  been  for  him,  I  should  have  gone  with 
out  flowers  all  the  summer." 

Zadoc  heard  this  and  grinned  ;  and  then  he 
began  to  think.  He  had  been  looking  over 
toward  the  quarry  during  the  day,  and  he  had 
noticed  that  the  horses  stood  idle  a  large  part 


THE  ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION.          I/ 

of  the  time.  There  was  one  tall  gray  hitched 
to  a  cart,  whose  business  it  was  to  remove  the 
small  stones  and  waste,  and  who  did  not  make 
one  trip  an  hour,  resting  for  the  greater  part  of 
the  time  under  a  huge  tree. 

"That  horse  ain't  too  tired,"  thought  Zadoc, 
"to  give  a  feller  a  lift  after  workin'  hours." 

By  four  o'clock  the  strings  were  up  for  the 
morning-glories.  Mr.  Thorndyke  would  not 
return  before  six.  Zadoc  strolled  down  to  the 
quarry  and  found  Milliken.  He  asked  Mil- 
liken  what  would  be  a  proper  charge  for  the 
services  of  the  big  gray  horse  for  two  hours 
after  six  o'clock.  Milliken  thought  fifty  cents 
would  pay  him  and  the  horse.  Then  Zadoc 
continued  his  stroll,  and  found  out  that  the 
dumping-grounds  of  South  Ridge  were  near 
the  river,  among  the  tailings  of  an  abandoned 
quarry. 

After  that  he  went  back  to  Bryan's  and  got 
a  couple  of  eggs  cooked  for  his  private  supper. 
He  had  had  his  dinner  at  the  noon  hour,  and  it 
was  worse  than  the  breakfast.  The  eggs  were, 
as  he  told  Mr.  Bryan,  "  kinder  'twixt  grass  and 
hay."  He  felt  that  he  had  had  enough  of 
Bryan's. 

Going  up  the  road  to  Mr.  Thorndyke's,  he 
came  to  the  neat  little  house  that  he  had 
noticed  the  night  before  ;  he  looked  at  it  for 


1 8          THE   ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION, 

a  minute,  and  then  he  went  in  and  asked  the 
white-haired  old  woman  if  she  did  not  want  to 
take  him  as  a  boarder.  She  said  that  she  did 
not ;  she  was  a  lone  widow-woman,  and  she 
had  all  she  could  do  to  pay  her  way  with 
doing  washing,  and  she  didn't  want  no  quarry- 
men  fooling  around  her  house  ;  she  knew  what 
quarrymen  were. 

Zadoc  explained  to  her  that  he  was  not  a 
quarryman.  He  told  her  all  about  himself, 
and  about  his  dissatisfaction  with  Bryan's 
arrangements ;  but  she  only  shook  her  head 
and  said  that  she  didn't  want  him.  He  was 
going  out  of  the  door,  when  the  young  girl  who 
had  smiled  on  him  yesterday,  and  who  had 
been  listening  in  a  corner,  came  forward  and 
spoke  earnestly  to  the  old  woman. 

"  He  looks  good,  mother,"  Zadoc  heard  her 
say ;  "  and  it's  to  his  credit  that  he  don't  like 
Bryan's.  If  he's  a  decent  man,  we  oughtn't  to 
send  him  back  to  a  place  like  that.  It's  a 
shame  for  a  young  man  to  be  left  among  those 
people." 

The  old  woman  wavered.  "  We  might  try 
him,"  she  said. 

Zadoc  came  back. 

"  You  try  me,  and  you'll  keep  me,"  said  he. 
"  An'  ez  fer  you,  young  woman,  ef  you  use  ez 
much  judgment  when  you  pick  out  a  husband 


THE  ZADOC  PINE   LABOR    UNION.          1 9 

ez  you  do  when  you  choose  a  boarder,  you'll 
do  first-rate."  The  young  woman  blushed. 

Then  they  talked  about  the  proper  price  of 
Zadoc's  board,  and  they  all  agreed  that  two 
dollars  a  week  would  be  fair.  Zadoc  paid 
down  the  two  dollars  in  advance,  and  was 
without  a  cent  in  the  world,  for  Bryan  had 
taken  his  other  dollar  for  the  two  bad  meals. 
But  Zadoc  did  not  mind  that,  and  within  fif 
teen  minutes  he  had  moved  his  possessions 
into  a  clean  little  whitewashed  room  in  the 
second  story  of  the  widow  Dadd's  house.  The 
widow  was  much  troubled  at  the  sight  of  his 
rifle ;  but  she  finally  consented  to  let  it  hang 
on  his  white  wall ;  and  Zadoc  ate  his  supper, 
although  he  had  eaten  one  already,  and  made 
the  meal  as  cheerful  as  he  could  to  Mrs.  Dadd 
and  her  daughter,  which  was  not  difficult  to 
him,  for  it  was  a  good  supper.  A  little  before 
six  he  marched  off  to  Mr.  Thorndyke's. 

Mr.  Thorndyke  paid  him  his  dollar  and  a 
half ;  and  Zadoc  broached  a  new  project. 

"  There's  that  there  ash-heap  o'  yourn,"  he 
said,  "  why  can't  I  cart  that  off  fer  you  ?  " 

"  But  you  haven't  a  cart,"  Mr.  Thorndyke 
objected. 

"I'll  have  one,"  Zadoc  said.  "What's  the 
job  wuth  ?  " 

"  I've  always  paid  a  dollar." 


20          THE  ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION. 

Zadoc  rubbed  his  chin  and  mused.  "  I'll 
call  on  ye  for  thet  dollar  when  I've  earned  it," 
he  said.  "  Evenin' !  " 

Zadoc  had  been  at  the  back  of  the  house 
during  the  day,  and  had  sized  up  the  ash-heap, 
as  well  as  one  or  two  other  things.  He  walked 
down  to  the  quarry  and  got  the  big  gray  and 
his  cart,  and  drove  up  to  the  Thorndykes'  back 
yard.  There  he  shovelled  the  ash-heap  (the 
shovel  went  with  the  horse  and  cart)  into  the 
vehicle.  There  was  just  one  load.  There  had 
been  a  heavy  rain  during  the  night,  and  the 
ashes  were  packed  close.  The  cart  held  a 
cubic  yard,  and  it  was  not  overloaded  when 
Zadoc  drove  it  down  the  road  toward  the  old 
quarry. 

As  he  drove  he  looked  ahead,  and  he  noticed 
that  the  sidewalks,  or  raised  paths  to  right  and 
left  of  the  road,  were  made  of  ashes  pounded 
down — not  cinders  from  the  railroad,  but  ordi 
nary  hard-coal  ashes,  beaten  into  a  compact 
mass.  Before  he  had  driven  half  a  mile  he 
saw,  some  hundred  feet  in  front  of  him,  a 
broad  break  in  the  sidewalk  to  his  right — a 
gully  washed  out  by  the  rain.  He  stopped 
his  horse  behind  a  clump  of  trees,  alighted, 
and  walked  forward  to  the  gate  in  front  of  a 
comfortable  house.  The  owner  was  pottering 
about,  looking  at  the  vines  that  were  begin- 


THE  ZADOC  PINE   LABOR    UNION.          21 

ning  to  climb  up  the  wires  on  his  veranda. 
Zadoc  accosted  him. 

"  Evenin'  !  You've  got  a  bad  hole  in  that 
there  path  o'  yourn." 

"  Are  you  a  road-inspector  ? "  asked  the 
man  of  the  house,  in  a  disagreeable  tone  of 
voice. 

"  No,"  said  Zadoc,  "  I'm  a  road-mender. 
You've  got  ter  fill  that  hole  up.  S'pose  I  fill 
it  up  fer  you  fer  fifty  cents  ?  " 

"  Yer  ain't  going  to  drive  out  here  and  mend 
that  walk  for  half  a  dollar,  are  you  ?  "  the  man 
asked,  incredulously. 

"  I'm  a-goin'  to  take  it  on  my  reggleler  rowt," 
replied  Zadoc.  "Does  she  go  ?  " 

The  man  looked  over  the  fence  at  the  big 
hole.  "  She  goes,"  he  said. 

It  was  just  one  hour  later,  when  some  light 
lingered  in  the  sky,  that  the  householder  with 
the  broken  sidewalk  paid  Zadoc  Pine  his  fifty 
cents.  He  paid  it  with  a  dazed  look  on  his 
face ;  but  Zadoc  was  as  bright  and  airy  as 
usual  as  he  pocketed  the  money  and  drove 
back  to  the  quarry-stables.  His  cubic  yard  of 
ashes  had  filled  the  gap  and  left  a  little  over, 
with  which  he  had  patched  a  few  smaller 
breaks. 

When  Zadoc  arose  on  the  morrow  and 
stepped  out  of  doors  to  breathe  the  morning 


22          THE  ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION. 

air,  he  saw  the  white-haired  widow  chopping 
kindling-wood  in  the  shed. 

"  That  ain't  no  work  fer  you,"  he  said. 

"  Who's  to  do  it  ?  "  the  widow  asked  ;  "  my 
darter,  her  arm's  lame.  She  lamed  it  snatchin' 
a  child  off  the  railroad-track  in  front  of  the 
engyne.  The  engyne  hit  her.  It  was  one  o' 
them  delegate's  children,  an'  no  thanks  to 
nobody.  Who's  to  chop  kindlin'  if  I  don't?" 

"  I  be,  I  reckon,"  said  Zadoc.  He  took  the 
hatchet  out  of  her  hands  and  split  up  a  week's 
supply.  It  was  sharp  work  on  an  empty  stom 
ach  ;  but  he  took  it  out  of  the  breakfast,  a  little 
later. 

After  breakfast  he  walked  down  to  Centre, 
the  nearest  large  town,  and  spent  an  hour  in  a 
paint-shop  there.  He  asked  a  great  many 
questions,  and  the  men  in  the  shop  had  a  good 
deal  of  fun  with  him.  Zadoc  knew  it,  but  he 
did  not  care.  "  Amooses  them,  don't  hurt  me, 
an'  keeps  the  derned  fools  talkin',"  he  said  to 
himself. 

He  returned  to  South  Ridge  in  time  for  din 
ner,  and  in  the  afternoon  sallied  out  to  look 
for  a  job.  Remembering  the  Bixbys  and  the 
Baxters,  and  the  fact  that  "  Andy  "  did  not 
care  for  more  than  two  days'  work  in  the  week, 
Zadoc  thought  he  would  offer  his  services  to 
the  two  families.  "  Thar'  ain't  no  room  in  this 


THE  ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION.         2$ 

world,"  he  reflected,  "for  two-day  men.  The 
six-day  men  has  first  call  on  all  jobs." 

The  Bixbys  gave  him  the  work,  and  paid 
him  a  dollar  for  the  afternoon's  work  ;  but  he 
could  not  come  to  terms  with  the  Baxters. 
They  wanted  him  to  take  fifty  cents  for  half  a 
day's  work. 

"  But  you'd  'a'  had  ter  pay  that  there  other 
feller  a  dollar,"  Zadoc  objected. 

"But  that's  different,"  said  Mrs.  Baxter; 
"you  aren't  a  regular  gardener,  you  know." 

"  The  job  ain't  different,"  replied  Zadoc ; 
"  and  ef  Andy  c'n  get  a  dollar  fer  it,  I'm  a-goin' 
to  let  him  have  it."  And  he  shook  his  long 
legs  down  the  road. 

He  loomed  up,  long  and  bony,  before  Mr. 
Thorndyke  just  after  dinner. 

"You've  come  to  cart  the  ash-heap  away,  I 
suppose?"  Mr.  Thorndyke  said. 

"  That  ash-heap  moved  out  of  town  last 
evenin'.  Ef  you've  got  time,  though,  I  want 
yer  to  step  around  to  the  back  o'  the  house. 
Got  somethin'  to  show  yer." 

The  "something"  was  Mr.  Thorndyke's 
barn.  He  kept  no  horse;  but  the  small  build 
ing  that  goes  with  every  well-regulated  cottage 
in  New  Jersey  he  utilized  as  a  play-room  for 
his  children  and  a  gymnasium  for  himself. 

"That  there  barn,"  Zadoc  told  him,  "is  jest 


24          THE   ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION. 

a  sight  to  look  at.  It  stands  to  the  north  o' 
the  house,  an'  takes  all  the  weather  there  is. 
The  paint's  most  off  it.  Look  at  these  here 
big  scales  !  I  took  one  of  those  there  fer  a 
sample,  and  here's  the  color,  the  way  it  ought 
to  be,  on  this  here  bit  o'  shingle."  Zadoc 
pulled  the  sample  out  of  his  pocket.  "  Now 
you  wanter  let  me  paint  that  barn  for  yer. 
I've  figgered  thet  it'll  cost  yer  jest  twenty-five 
dollars.  Thet's  a  savin'  for  yo2i,  an'  I  c'n  take 
my  time  about  it,  and  put  in  a  week  on  the 
job  an'  do  some  other  work  round  the  town  at 
the  same  time." 

"Have  you  other  engagements?"  Mr. 
Thorndyke  asked. 

"  No,"  was  Zadoc's  answer  ;  "  but  I'm  goin' 
to  hev  'em." 

"  But  do  you  know  how  to  paint  ?  " 

"  Anythin'  the  matter  with  my  gardenin'  ?  " 

"  No." 

"  All  right  on  ash-heaps,  ain't  I  ?  " 

"  I  suppose  so." 

"  Well,  you  jest  try  me  on  paint.  Same  old 
terms — no  satisfaction,  no  pay.  I  can't  make 
that  there  barn  look  wuss'n  it  does  now  ;  an' 
I'm  goin'  ter  make  it  look  a  heap  better." 

The  next  afternoon  Zadoc  was  painting  the 
Thorndyke  barn.  He  worked  there  only  in 
the  afternoons  ;  in  the  mornings  he  hunted  up 


THE  ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION.         2$ 

odd  jobs  about  the  town,  and  the  money  he 
eot  for  these  he  took  to  Centre  and  invested 

o 

in  paint  and  brushes.  As  he  paid  cash,  he  had 
to  buy  in  small  quantities  ;  but  when  the  barn 
was  painted — and  it  was  painted  to  Mr. 
Thorndyke's  satisfaction — Zadoc  found  himself 
something  more  like  a  capitalist  than  he  had 
ever  been  in  his  life. 

But  there  was  one  unpleasant  incident  con 
nected  with  this  job.  He  was  sitting  one 
afternoon  in  the  children's  swing,  which  he 
had  borrowed  to  use  in  painting  those  parts  of 
the  barn  which  he  could  not  reach  with  a 
ladder :  he  tied  the  ends  of  the  ropes  around 
the  cupola,  twisted  himself  up  to  the  ridge 
pole,  and  untwisted  himself  as  he  painted 
downward.  He  was  slathering  away  on  his 
second  coat,  whistling  cheerily  to  himself, 
when  a  man  in  overalls  and  a  painty  jacket 
came  up  and  made  some  remarks  about  the 
weather.  Zadoc  told  him  that  the  weather 
was  a  good  thing  to  take  as  it  came  ;  and  then 
the  man  inquired : 

"  Do  you  belong  to  the  union  ?  " 

''What  union?"  asked  Zadoc;  "I  ain't  no 
Canuck,  ef  thet's  what  yer  mean." 

"  The  house-painters'  union,"  said  the  man. 

"Well,  no,"  said  Zadoc,  still  slathering 
away,  with  his  head  on  one  side.  "  Guess  I'm 


26          THE   ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION. 

union  enough,  all  by  myself.  I'm  perfec'ly 
united,  I  am — all  harmonious  and  unanimous 
an'  comfortable." 

"What  are  you  a-paintin'  for,  then?" 
demanded  the  stranger. 

"  Fer  money,"  said  Zadoc.  "  What  are  you 
a-foolin'  around  here  for?  " 

"  Have  you  ever  served  an  apprenticeship 
to  this  business?  "  the  man  asked. 

"  Hev  you  ever  served  an  apprenticeship  ter 
rollin'  off  a  log?"  Zadoc  asked,  by  way  of 
answer. 

The  man  muttered  something  and  moved 
away.  Zadoc  communed  with  himself. 

"  Ap-prenticeship  ter  sloppin'  paint  !  Well, 
I  be  derned  !  Why,  fool-work  like  thet's  born 
in  a  man,  same's  swimmin'." 

****** 

As  Zadoc  became  known  to  the  community 
he  found  that  work  came  right  to  his  hand. 
The  laboring  native  of  South  Ridge  was  the 
sort  of  man  who  said,  when  a  job  was  offered 
to  him,  "  Well,  I  guess  I'll  take  a  day  off  some 
time  week  arter  next  and  'tend  to  it."  This 
energetic  person  from  the  North  Woods,  who 
made  engagements  and  kept  them,  was  a  reve 
lation  to  the  householders  of  the  town.  He 
mended  fences  and  roads ;  he  cut  grass  and 
sodded  lawns ;  he  put  in  panes  of  glass  and 


THE  ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION.         2/ 

whitewashed  kitchens ;  he  soldered  leaky  re 
frigerators  and  clothes-boilers  ;  he  made  paths 
and  dug  beds ;  he  beat  carpets  and  pumped 
water  into  garret  tanks — in  short,  he  did  every 
thing  that  a  man  can  do  with  muscle  and  intel 
ligent  application.  He  was  not  afraid  to  do  a 
thing  because  he  had  never  done  it  before. 

Moreover,  he  made  his  services  acceptable 
by  doing,  as  a  rule,  more  than  his  contract 
called  for.  He  was  not  above  treating  his 
employers  as  so  many  fellow  human  beings. 
When  the  doctor  prescribed  wild-cherry  cor 
dial  for  Mrs.  Thorndyke,  Zadoc  put  in  a  whole 
afternoon  in  scouring  the  country  for  wild 
cherries,  and  brought  back  a  large  basketful. 
He  would  take  no  pay. 

"  Them's  with  my  compliments,"  he  said. 
"  They  growed  wild,  an'  I  guess  they  growed 
wild  a-puppus.  Knowed  thar  was  sick  folks 
a-needin'  of  'em,  mebbe." 

*  #•&*•£  -X- 

But  it  was  not  to  be  all  plain  sailing  for 
Zadoc.  One  evening  he  went  home  to  the 
widow  Dadd's,  and  found  the  widow  in  tears 
and  her  daughter  flushed  and  indignant.  They 
told  him  that  a  "  boycott  "  had  been  declared 
against  him  for  doing  union  men's  work,  and 
against  them  for  harboring  him.  The  butcher 
of  the  town,  who  was  also  the  green-grocer, 


28          THE   ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION. 

would  sell  Mrs.  Dadd  nothing  more  until  she 
turned  Zadoc  out  of  doors.  Centre  was  the 
nearest  town  from  which  she  could  get  sup 
plies,  and  Centre  was  three  miles  away. 

Zadoc  walked  over  to  the  butcher's  shop. 
The  butcher  was  a  German. 

"  What's  this  here,  Schmitzer  ?  "  he  demand 
ed.  "  Ain't  my  money  good  enough  fer  you  ?  " 

"  I  ken't  help  it,  Mr.  Pine,"  said  Schmitzer, 
sullenly.  "  If  I  don'  boygott  you,  dem  fellis 
boygott  me.  I  got  noddin'  against  you,  Mr. 
Pine,  but  I  ken't  sell  you  no  mead,  nor  Mrs. 
Tatt  neider." 

"  Runnin'  me  out  of  town,  are  ye?  "  Zadoc 
said.  "  Well,  we  run  men  out  whar  I  come 
from.  But  we  don't  run  'em  out  unless  they've 
done  suthin',  an'  they  don't  let  'emselves  be 
run  out  onless  they've  done  suthin.'  I  ain't 
done  nothin'  but  what  I  ought,  an'  I'm  a-goin' 
ter  stay  here." 

He  went  back  to  the  widow  Dadd's,  and  told 
her  that  he  would  take  charge  of  the  commis 
sariat.  That  night  he  got  a  large  packing-case, 
which  Mr.  Vredenburg  was  quite  willing  to 
give  him,  and  a  barrow-load  of  saw-dust  from 
the  waste-heap  at  the  saw-mill.  After  an  hour's 
work  he  had  a  fairly  good  ice-box,  and  by  the 
next  night  he  had  that  box  filled  with  ice  from 
Centre  and  with  meat  and  vegetables  from  New 


THE   ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION.         29 

York.  Zadoc  read  the  papers  ;  he  had  seen 
the  market  reports,  and  now  he  was  able  to 
determine,  by  actual  experiment,  the  differ 
ence  between  South  Ridge  prices  and  New 
York  market  prices.  He  discovered  that  the 
difference  was  very  nearly  forty  per  cent.  The 
express  company's  charge  for  transportation 
was  forty  cents  for  an  ordinary  flour-barrel 
well  packed. 

Zadoc  saw  a  new  vista  opening  before  him. 
He  called  on  Mr.  Thorndyke,  and  proposed  to 
do  that  stately  person's  marketing,  and  to 
divide  the  forty  per  cent,  profit  evenly  be 
tween  them.  Mr.  Thorndyke  was  at  first 
doubtful  and  suspicious.  He  cross-examined 
Zadoc,  and  found  out  what  had  started  the 
young  man  on  this  new  line.  Then  his  man 
ners  changed.  Mr.  Thorndyke  was  not  in  the 
habit  of  carrying  himself  very  graciously 
toward  those  whom  he  considered  his  social 
inferiors.  But  now  he  grasped  Zadoc's  hand 
and  shook  it  heartily. 

"  I'm  glad  to  know  this,  Pine,"  he  said.  "  If 
you've  got  the  pluck  to  fight  those  cowardly 
brutes  and  their  boycott,  I'll  stand  by  you. 
You  may  try  your  hand  at  the  marketing,  and 
if  you  suit  Mrs.  Thorndyke,  all  right.  If  you 
don't,  we'll  find  something  else  for  you  to 
do." 


30          THE   ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION. 

Zadoc  went  in  town  on  the  morrow  with  a 
list  of  Mrs.  Thorndyke's  domestic  needs.  He 
had,  on  his  previous  visit,  sought  out  the 
venders  who  dealt  in  only  one  quality  of 
goods,  and  that  the  best.  To  these,  in  his 
ignorance  of  the  details  of  marketing,  he 
thought  it  best  to  apply,  although  their  higher 
prices  diminished  his  profits.  In  this  way  he 
was  able  to  send  home  a  full  week's  supply  of 
the  best  meat  and  vegetables  in  the  market. 
They  proved  to  be  better  than  Schmitzer's 
best,  and  Mr.  Thorndyke  paid  a  bill  smaller  by 
one-fifth  than  he  had  ever  received  from 
Schmitzer.  Zadoc  was  only  forty-three  cents 
to  the  good ;  but  he  had  made  his  point. 
Within  one  month  he  was  buying  for  ten 
families,  and  receiving  the*  blessing  of  ten 
weary  housewives,  who  found  it  easier  to  sit 
down  of  a  Friday  night,  lay  out  a  bill  of  fare 
for  a  week,  and  hand  it  to  Zadoc  Pine  with  a 
tranquil  dismissal  of  all  further  care,  than  it  had 
been  to  meet  every  recurring  morning  the  old, 
old  question,  What  shall  we  have  for  dinner 
to-day  ?  And  Zadoc  found  his  profit  therein. 
****** 

One  warm  evening  in  September,  Zadoc 
Pine  sat  in  the  front  yard  of  the  widow 
Dadd's  house,  whittling  a  plug  for  the  cider- 
barrel.  He  looked  up  from  his  whittling  and 


THE   ZADOC  PINE   LABOR    UNION.         31 

saw  a  party  of  a  dozen  men  come  up  the  road 
and  stop  at  the  gate.  He  arose  and  went  for 
ward  to  meet  them. 

"  Good-evenin',  friends!"  he  said,  driving 
his  jack-knife  into  the  top  rail  of  the  fence 
and  leaning  over  the  pickets  :  "  Want  to  see 
me,  I  s'pose  ?  What  c'n  I  do  fer  ye  ?  " 

One  man  came  forward  and  put  himself  at 
the  head  of  the  party.  Zadoc  knew  him  by 
sight.  It  was  McCuskey,  the  "  walking-dele 
gate." 

"  You  can  get  out  of  this  town,"  said 
McCuskey,  "  as  fast  as  you  know  how  to. 
We'll  give  you  ten  hours." 

"  That's  friendly-like,"  said  Zadoc.  "  I  ain't 
had  a  present  o'  ten  hours'  free  time  made  me 
since  I  wuz  a  boy  at  school." 

"  Well,"  McCuskey  broke  in,  annoyed  at 
some  suppressed  laughter  in  his  rear,  "  you 
can  take  them  ten  hours  and  use  them  to  get 
out  of  South  Ridge." 

"Ken,  eh?"  said  Zadoc.  "Well,  now,  ef 
I've  gotter  go,  I've  gotter  go.  I  ain't  got  no 
objection.  But  I  jest  wanter  know  what  I've 
gotter  go  fer.  Then  maybe  I'll  see  if  I'll  go 
or  not." 

"You  have  got  to  go,"  McCuskey  began, 
"  because  you  have  interfered  with  the  inalien 
able  rights  of  labor ;  because  you  have  taken 


32          THE  ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION. 

the  bread  out  of  the  mouths  of  honest  toil 
ers — 

"  Sho  !  "  Zadoc  interrupted  him,  "  don't  talk 
no  sech  fool-talk  ez  that !  I  ain't  taken  no 
bread  outer  no  man's  mouth.  I  ain't  got 
down  to  that  yet.  S'pose  you  tell  me  in  plain 
English  what  I've  done  to  be  run  outer  town 
fer?" 

There  was  more  hushed  laughter  in  the 
spokesman's  rear,  and  he  set  his  teeth  angrily 
before  he  opened  his  lips  again. 

"You  have  no  trade,  and  you  have  taken 
jobs  away  from  men  who  have  trades.  You 
took  away  a  painter's  job  when  you  painted 
that  barn  on  the  hill." 

"  I  didn't  take  away  no  painter's  job.  It 
wasn't  nobody's  job — it  wasn't  no  job  at  all 
until  I  made  a  job  of  it.  Ef  the  painter  wanted 
it,  why  didn't  he  go  an'  get  it  ?  " 

"  You've  took  away  Andy  Conner's  garden 
ing-work  all  around  the  town." 

"  Tha's  so  !  "  from  Andy  Conner,  at  the  back 
of  the  crowd. 

"  Where  was  Andy  Conner  when  I  took  his 
jobs  away  from  him  ? "  Zadoc  asked,  and 
answered  himself :  "  Drunk,  in  Bryan's  back 
yard.  Andy  Conner  works  two  days  in  the 
week,  an'  I  work  six.  I  ain't  got  no  time  to 
be  sortin'  out  Andy  Conner's  jobs  from  mine." 


THE   ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION.         33 

Then  there  came  a  husky  howl  from  out  the 
thickest  of  the  crowd. 

"  Veil,  you  take  avay  my  chob,  aynyhow ! 
You  take  my  bissness  avay — you  take  my 
boocher  bissness." 

"Ah  !  "  said  Zadoc,  "that's  you,  Schmitzer, 
is  it?  Yes,  ye're  right.  I'm  takin'  yer  job  away 
— the  best  I  know  how.  But  I  didn't  take  it 
away  until  you  took  the  food  outer  my  mouth 
— thet's  what  ye  did,  an'  no  fancy  talk,  neither 
— an'  outer  the  mouths  o'  two  helpless  wimmin. 
An'  under  them  circumstances,  every  time,  I'd 
take  your  job  away,  ef  you  was  the  President 
of  the  United  States." 

This  was  a  solemn  asseveration  for  Zadoc. 
He  respected  the  office  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States.  But  it  was  lost  on  his  hearers. 
No  man  in  that  crowd  respected  the  President 
of  the  United  States.  There  came  a  low, 
growling  murmur  from  the  group  : 

"  Kill  him  !    Hang  the  scab  !     Kill  him  !  " 

"  Kill  ?  " 

Zadoc  let  out  a  voice  that  only  the  Adiron 
dack  hills  had  heard  before.  Then  he  checked 
himself,  and  talked  quietly,  yet  so  that  every 
man  on  the  street  heard  him. 

"  I  came  from  the  North  Woods,"  he  said. 
"  They  make  men  whar  I  came  from.  I  ain't 
wronged  no  man  in  this  town.  I  come  here  to 
3 


34          THE  ZADOC  PINE   LABOR    UNION. 

make  my  livin',  an'  here  I'll  stay.  Ef  you 
wanter  fight,  I'll  fight  yer,  one  at  a  time,  or 
the  hull  gang!  Ye  can  kill  me,  but  ye've  got- 
ter  kill  me  here.  An'  ef  it  comes  ter  killin',  I 
c'n  hold  my  end  up.  I  c'n  kill  a  rabbit  at 
forty  rod,  an'  I  own  my  rifle  yit.  But  I  know 
ye  won't  give  me  no  fair  fight ;  ye  want  to 
crawl  up  behind  me.  Well,  I'm  a  man  from 
the  woods.  I  c'n  hear  ye  a  half  a  mile  off,  an' 
I  c'n  smell  ye.  a  hundred  yards." 

He  made  an  end,  and  stood  looking  at  them. 
He  had  picked  up  his  big  jack-knife,  and  was 
jabbing  its  blade  deep  into  the  top  rail  of  the 
fence  and  picking  it  out  again.  A  silence  fell 
upon  the  crowd.  Zadoc  Pine  was  a  large  man 
and  a  strong  man.  He  had  a  knife,  and  in 
the  doorway  behind  him  stood  the  widow 
Dadd's  daughter  with  his  rifle,  held  ready  for 
him. 

Zadoc  broke  the  silence. 

"  Boys,"  he  said,  "  I  ain't  no  hog.  I  want 
you  to  understand  thet  I'm  goin'  to  earn  my 
own  livin'  my  own  way.  I  take  what  work  I 
c'n  get ;  an'  ef  other  folks  is  shif'less  enough 
ter  leave  their  work  fer  me  ter  do,  thet's  their 
business.  I've  took  one  man's  job  away  from 
him  fer  cause.  But  I  ain't  got  no  spite  ag'in 
him.  He's  on'y  a  fool-furriner.  Thet's  you, 
Schmitzer.  An'  ter  show  you  that  I  ain't  got 


THE  ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION.         35 

no  spite  agin  yer,  I'm  a-goin'  ter  make  you  an 
offer.  I'll  take  yer  inter  partnership." 

There  was  a  derisory  laugh  at  this  from  the 
whole  delegation,  but  Zadoc  checked  it. 

"  Schmitzer,"  he  said,  "  you  come  inside 
here  and  talk  it  over  with  me.  I  ain't  goin' 
to  hurt  ye,  an'  yer  friends  here  '11  go  down 
street  ter  Bryan's  an'  take  a  drink.  They've 
been  a-talkin',  an'  I  guess  they're  thirsty." 

After  a  moment  of  irresolute  hesitation  the 
delegation  moved  off.  The  men  were  puzzled. 
The  exiling  of  Zadoc  Pine  seemed  no  longer  a 
simple  matter,  and  they  felt  the  need  of  dis 
cussing  a  new  situation.  Zadoc  and  Schmitzer 
were  left  together  in  the  little  stone  house. 

"  Schmitzer,"  said  Zadoc,  "  I'm  makin'  most 
as  much  clean  profit  outer  my  ten  families  ez 
you're  makin'  out  of  yer  whole  business,  an'  I 
don't  have  no  rent  t'  pay.  Here's  my  figgers — 
look  'em  over.  Now,  Schmitzer,  thar's  np  end 
of  business  hereabouts  thet  you  ain't  worked 
up.  These  farmers  all  around  about  are  livin' 
on  salt  pork,  an'  eatin'  butchers'  meat  wunst  a 
week.  We've  gotter  get  their  trade  and  teach 
'em  Christian  livin'.  These  here  quarrymen 
ain't  eatin'  meat  like  they  oughter.  S'pose  we 
show  'em  what  they  c'n  get  for  a  dollar  ?  " 

Schmitzer  looked  carefully  over  Zadoc's 
figures.  He  knew  the  risks  of  carrying  perish- 


36          THE   ZADOC  PINE   LABOR    UNION. 

able  stock.  He  saw  that  people  bought  more 
when  the  opportunities  of  the  great  markets 
were  offered  to  them.  Before  he  left  the  house 
he  had  agreed  to  work  with  Zadoc,  and  to  fol 
low  his  leader  in  the  new  scheme  for  supplying 
South  Ridge  with  meat  and  vegetables. 

"An'  what'll  yer  friends  down  street  say?" 
queried  Zadoc. 

"  I  don'  care  vot  dey  say,"  responded  Schmit- 

zer;  "dose  fellus  ain't  no  good.     I  got  better 

bissness  now.     If  dey  don'  like  it,  dey  go  down 

to  Cendre  un'  bring  deir  meat  home  demselfs." 

•x-  *  *  #  -*  * 

Zadoc  retains  his  share  in  the  Pine  &  Schmit- 
zer  Supply  Company;  but  after  he  had 
drummed  up  the  local  trade  on  the  new  basis, 
and  broken  Schmitzer  into  the  routine  work, 
he  branched  off  for  himself  in  a  new  line. 

He  had  found  an  amateur  electrician  among 
his  customers,  and  with  this  gentleman's  aid 
he  organized  the  South  Ridge  Fire  Depart 
ment  and  Protective  Association.  Thirty-six 
householders  paid  him  ten  dollars  for  the  plant 
and  ten  dollars  for  yearly  service;  and  he  con 
nected  their  houses  in  an  electric  circuit,  of 
which  his  own  bedroom  was  the  central  station. 
In  each  house  was  a  combined  bell  and  alarm ; 
and  if  a  citizen  awoke  at  night  to  find  his 
chimney  on  fire  or  to  hear  a  stranger  within 


THE   ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION.         37 

his  chicken-house,  he  rang  a  wild  tocsin  in 
thirty-five  other  houses,  and  then  sounded  a 
signal-letter  by  dot  and  dash  to  proclaim  his 
identity.  Then  the  whole  town  turned  out, 
and  Zadoc  drove  a  small  chemical  engine 
behind  Schmitzer's  horse.  If  the  cause  of  the 
disturbance  was  a  chicken-thief,  and  the  cause 
was  caught,  Zadoc  played  upon  him. 

"  Can't  bring  out  that  engyne  fer  nothin'," 
he  said ;  "  she's  gotter  serve  a  moral  purpose 
somehow." 

Two  years  and  a  half  have  passed  since 
Zadoc  left  the  North  Woods.  He  is  an 
employer  now,  and  an  owner  of  real-estate,  in 
a  small  way,  and  he  still  has  South  Ridge 
under  his  protecting  wing,  and  keeps  her  yards 
clean  and  her  lawns  trim — or  his  men  do. 
Moreover,  he  is  the  husband  of  the  girl  whose 
smile  first  welcomed  him  to  the  Ridge. 

"  Man  must  earn  his  bread  in  the  sweat  of 
his  brow,"  he  has  said  ;  "but  some  men  sweat 
inside  o'  their  heads  an'  some  outside.  I'm 
workin'  my  brain.  I  could  'a'  done  more  with 
it  ef  I'd  'a'  had  edication.  When  that  there 
boy  o'  mine  gets  a  few  years  on  top  o'  the  six 
weeks  he's  got  now,  I'll  give  him  all  he  wants, 
an'  he  c'n  do  the  swaller-tail  business  ef  he 
wants  to.  Thet  goes  with  edication." 

"  You  have  done  much    for   the   town,  Mr. 


$8          THE   ZADOC  PINE  LABOR    UNION. 

Pine,"  the  Dominie  once  said  to  him,  "and  I 
am  glad  to  say  that  your  success  has  been  due 
to  the  application  of  sound  principles — those 
principles  on  which  true  success  has  ever  been 
founded." 

"  Yaas,"  said  Zadoc,  meditatively,  "an'  then 
— I'm  an  Amerikin,  an'  I  guess  thet  goes  fer 
suthinV 


NATURAL  SELECTION. 

A  ROMANCE  OF  CHELSEA  VILLAGE  AND  EAST 
HAMPTON    TOWN. 


PART    I. 

/"^HELSEA  Village  has  never  had  the  ag- 
^^  gressive  exclusiveness  of  Greenwich.  It 
exists  to-day,  and  vaguely  knows  itself  by 
name,  close  to  the  heart  of  the  great  city  that 
has  swallowed  it  up  ;  but  it  is  in  nowise  such 
a  distinct  entity  as  the  brave  little  tangle 
of  crooked  streets  a  few  blocks  to  the  south. 
Greenwich  has  always  been  Greenwich,  and  the 
Ninth  Ward  has  been  the  centre  of  civilization 
to  the  dwellers  therein.  But  Chelsea  has  tried 
to  be  fashionable,  has  opened  its  doors  to  for 
eign  invaders,  and  has  even  had  an  attack  of 
Anglomania,  and  branched  out  into  Terraces 
in  the  true  London  style.  And  so  it  has  lost 
homogeneity  and  originality,  and  it  has  only  a 
peculiar  and  private  air  of  ambitionless  and 
uninviting  gloom  to  set  it  apart  as  a  special 


4°  NATURAL   SELECTION. 

quarter  of  New  York.  But  Chelsea  certainly 
does  look  like  the  inhabitants  of  its  own  board 
ing-houses — most  respectable  people,  who  have 
only  tried  too  hard  at  elegant  gentility  for 
their  own  comfort  or  prosperity.  And  the 
place  has  one  other  strong  individuality.  I  do 
not  know  that  there  are  very  many  ailanthus- 
trees  in  Chelsea ;  but  there  is,  to  me,  a  pervad 
ing  odor  of  that  gruesome  exotic  in  all  the 
streets,  and  I  think  an  imaginative  person 
might  detect  the  smell  even  in  the  midwinter 
blasts  that  howl  up  from  the  North  River. 

Contemplation  of  one  Chelsea  street  had  a 
depressing  effect  upon  Miss  Celia  Leete,  as 
she  sat  by  her  window  at  five  o'clock  of  a  sum 
mer  Saturday  afternoon.  Her  room  was  in 
the  front  of  a  third  story  of  a  comfortable 
white  wooden  house,  one  of  a  little  squad  that 
stood  well  back  from  the  street,  the  first  two 
stories  all  but  hidden  by  green-latticed  ver 
andas. 

Miss  Celia  Leete  looked  through  the  thin 
and  dusty  leaves  of  the  horse-chestnut-tree  on 
the  sidewalk,  and  her  gaze  roved  idly  up  and 
down  the  line  of  boarding-houses  across  the 
way.  They  were  boarding-houses  with  certain 
aspirations.  They  had  also  high  stoops  and 
elaborate  cast-iron  balconies.  Yet,  somehow, 
they  did  not  look  like  even  the  second-cousins 


NATURAL   SELECTION.  41 

of  those  lordlier  structures  within  the  sacred 
one  block's  space  east  and  west  from  Fifth 
Avenue.  Perhaps  this  was  partly  because  right 
next  to  them  came  the  little  tailor's  shop,  red 
brick,  painted  redder  yet,  ten  feet  wide  and 
one  story  high,  with  the  German  tailor's  wife 
forever  standing  in  the  doorway,  holding  her 
latest  baby  in  her  bare  red  arms. 

The  children  of  shabby  and  not  over-clean 
gentility  were  playing  in  shrill-voiced  chorus 
on  the  sidewalk  in  front  of  the  high-stoop 
houses.  Occasionally  one  of  them  would  rec 
ognize  a  home-returning  father,  and,  without 
pausing  in  the  merry  round  of  Spanish  Fly  or 
Par,  would  give  his  parent  the  hail  of  easy 
equality,  "  H'lo,  Pa." 

The  heads  of  families  in  the  boarding-house 
colony  were  sometimes  employed  in  the  whole 
sale  houses  down-town  ;  but  oftener  were  clerks 
or  floor-walkers  in  large  dry-goods  shops,  or 
proprietors  of  smaller  establishments  on  the 
West-side  avenues.  One  of  these  gentlemen 
arrived  at  his  domicile  as  Miss  Celia  Leete 
looked  out  of  her  window.  He  mechanically 
took  his  night-key  from  his  pocket,  but  he  re 
placed  it,  for  the  door  was  open,  and  most  of 
the  ladies  of  the  house  were  disposed  about  the 
steps,  in  all  the  finery  that  "  bargain  counters  " 
of  Fourteenth  Street  could  furnish.  Then  this 


42  NATURAL   SELECTION. 

conversation  fell  sharply  upon  the  dull  and 
sultry  air  : 

"  Why,  Mr.  Giddens,  that  you  ?  Early  to 
night,  ain't  you  ?  Wasn't  it  awful  hot  down 
town  ?  " 

By  a  delicate  convention  of  the  place,  even 
the  boarder  who  was  in  charge  of  the  Gents' 
Furnishing  Goods  Department  of  Messrs.  Son- 
nenschein  &  Regenschirm,  a  mile  up  Eighth 
Avenue,  was  supposed  to  transact  his  business 
"  down-town." 

"  Hot  enough  for  me  [a  responsive  ripple  of 
merriment].  I  ain't  a  hog,  Miss  Seavey.  Why, 
Miss  Wicks,  you  down  again  ?  Haven't  seen 
you  in  three  days.  Quite  a  stranger.  How's 
the  neuralger?  " 

"  Better  now,  thank  you,  Mr.  Giddens  ;  but 
I  had  an  awfle  siege  of  it  this  time.  I  was 
most  afraid  to  show  myself,  I've  run  down  so." 

"  /dersed  you'd  run  up,  'stid  'f  down.  Never 
saw  you  lookin'  better." 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Giddens,  you're  so  gal/««/  /  I 
wonder  your  wife  ain't  jealous  of  you,  you're 
so  gal/rtw/  to  all  the  ladies.  There,  you  go 
right  along  to  her,  or  she'll  say  somethin'  to 
me,  I  know  she  will."  And  with  a  gentle  push, 
and  amid  much  tittering,  Mr.  Giddens  disap 
peared  in  the  dark  door- way. 

Celia  Leete  turned  from  her  window.     She 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  43 

was    sick  of    life,  of    the  place,  of    herself — of 
something,  she  could  not  quite  tell  what. 

And  yet  her  ailment  was  common  enough, 
and  simple  enough,  and  she  defined  her  longing 
sufficiently  well  when  she  said  to  herself,  as  she 
sometimes  did,  "  I  wish  I  was  some  one  else." 

It  would  not  require  a  profound  psycholo 
gist,  knowing  who  and  what  Miss  Celia  Leete 
was,  and  knowing  also  that  she  had  spent  one 
year  of  the  most  purely  formative  period  of 
her  young  life  in  a  semi-fashionable  boarding- 
school,  to  deduce  from  this  statement  a  general 
idea  of  what  manner  of  person  Miss  Celia 
Leete  wished  to  be,  could  she  be  some  one 
other  than  herself. 

Miss  Celia  Leete  was  the  younger  daugh 
ter  of  David  Leete,  the  manufacturer  of  the 
once  famous  "  William  Riley  "  baking-powder. 
There  was  no  levity  prepense  in  the  peculiar 
suggestiveness  of  this  name.  Mr.  Leete  had 
perhaps  never  heard  of  the  Celtic  lover  who  of 
old  time  was  bidden  by  his  aristocratic  lady 
love  to  "  rise  up  "  and  accompany  her  to  "  far 
Amerikey."  But  he  had  bought  the  receipt 
for  his  excellent  baking-powder  from  a  clever 
young  Irishman  who  chanced  to  be  a  namesake 
of  the  lovelorn  emigrant  whose  tale  is  told  in 
immortal  verse,  and  he  loyally  gave  the  in 
ventor  due  credit, and  stood  upon  hisown  merits 


44  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

as  an  honest  manufacturer.  It  was  long  ago, 
in  the  earlier  days  of  baking-powder,  that 
David  Leete  put  the  "  William  Riley  "  on  the 
market.  It  was  a  great  success  among  those 
first  adventurous  housewives  who  were  hereti 
cal  enough  to  shake  off  the  thralldom  of  yeast. 
Of  later  years,  other  baking-powders  had 
crowded  between  it  and  the  great  baking  pub 
lic,  yet  it  still  sold  much  as  it  had  at  first,  when 
hundreds  only,  instead  of  thousands,  put  faith 
in  the  fermenting  powers  of  the  new  discovery. 
The  adventurous  housewives  of  the  first  gen 
eration  had  grown  old  and  conservative,  and 
they  clung  to  the  William  Riley  powder,  and 
thought  ill  of  those  giddy  young  matrons  who 
dallied  with  more  modern  compounds. 

So  David  Leete  was  well-to-do.  He  might 
have  lived  in  a  much  finer  house  than  the 
white  frame  cottage  ;  but  that  was  the  first 
house  he  had  ever  bought,  and  thence  he  had 
ordered  that  he  should  be  borne  when  the  time 
came  for  him  to  leave  New  York  forever.  For 
even  the  truest  old  New  Yorker  must  now  go 
into  exile  with  Death,  and  lie  down  at  last  in  a 
Brooklyn  cemetery  or  far  up  in  trim  Wood- 
lawn. 

From  the  old  house,  then,  he  walked  to  his 
Houston  Street  factory  every  morning  at  eight 
o'clock.  It  had  been  six  o'clock  in  the  baking- 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  45 

powder's  first  days  of  struggle,  and  then  it  had 
been  seven,  and  half-past  seven,  and  now  that 
his  son  Alonzo  was  old  enough  to  look  after 
the  business,  he  was  thinking  of  making  it 
nine.  At  half-past  twelve  he  came  back  for 
dinner ;  at  six  he  was  at  home,  in  his  shirt 
sleeves  and  his  big  slippers,  waiting  for  supper 
with  a  good  appetite  and  a  clear  conscience. 

Mr.  Leete  had  a  better  appetite  for  his  sup 
per  than  his  younger  daughter  could  often 
muster  up.  By  six  o'clock,  as  a  general  thing, 
the  day  had  grown  veiy  heavy  to  this  young 
lady,  and  she  was  not  tempted  by  the  cold 
meat,  the  hot  biscuit,  the  cake  and  the  tea 
which  were  good  enough  for  her  father  and 
her  mother,  her  brother  Alonzo  and  her  sis 
ter  Dorinda,  more  commonly  called  Dodie  or 
Doe. 

But  then  there  were  many  things  that  Celia 
did  not  fancy,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  rest 
of  the  family  liked  them.  Such  strange  differ 
ences  of  taste  will  occasionally  occur  in  even 
the  most  conservatively  regulated  households — 
and  the  standard-bearer  of  a  new  school  of 
domestic  ethics  has  to  suffer,  as  a  rule.  Were 
we  not  well  abreast  with  the  world  when  last 
we  took  our  bearings,  some  twenty  or  thirty 
years  ago  ?  Are  we  to  set  our  sails  now  to  suit 
these  saucy  chits  whom  we  ourselves  brought 


46  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

into  the  world  ?  What  was  right  in  our  time 
is  right  for  all  time,  and  there's  an  end  of  it. 

Celia  did  not,  however,  suffer  martyrdom 
because  of  any  ideas  which  may  have  stimu 
lated  her  young  imagination.  Her  mother 
said  she  was  "a  peaky,  Miss  Nancy  sort  of  a 
fussy  child,  not  'tall  like  Popper  Leete,  nor 
like  my  own  folks,  neither."  Father  Leete 
thought  sometimes  that  she  had  been  "  spilte 
by  that  highty-tighty  boardin'-school."  Do- 
rinda  considered  her  "  awfle  queer,"  and  wished 
she  were  "  like  the  other  girls,"  and  Alonzo 
silently  disapproved  of  her  ways  and  man 
ners — saying  once,  in  fact,  that  he  thought  she 
had  too  many  of  the  latter.  Yet  they  all 
loved  her  and  indulged  and  petted  her.  They 
did  not  understand  her,  of  course  ;  but  then 
there  was  no  necessity  of  understanding  her. 
Children  are  fanciful,  and  Celia  was  still  the 
child  of  the  house. 

And  although  these  quoted  utterances  told, 
in  a  broad  way,  the  truth  about  Celia's  differ 
ences  with  the  family  standard  of  ethics,  it  is 
safe  to  say  that  no  member  of  the  household 
had  anything  like  a  realizing  sense  of  that 
truth.  If  they  perceived  in  the  young  woman 
an  unwise  and  futile  ambition,  they  misappre 
hended  the  nature  of  the  ambition  itself,  and 
pictured  the  aspirant  as  desirous  merely  of 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  47 

those  material  things  the  possession  of  which 
represented  to  them  social  superiority.  If 
they  had  been  asked  to  put  their  ideas  in 
words,  they  would  have  said  that  Celia  wished 
to  live  in  a  house  on  Fifth  Avenue,  to  drive  on 
that  thoroughfare  in  a  fine  carriage,  to  give 
balls,  and  to  dance  the  german,  whatever  that 
was,  and  to  have  her  name  in  the  Home  Jour 
nal  every  week.  And,  doubtless,  these  things 
were  all  in  Celia's  list  of  vague  desires ;  but 
also  her  heart  yearned  after  a  certain  some 
thing  which  sometimes  goes  with  these  things, 
which  yet  she  knew  was  not  hers  by  birth — 
whereas  the  notion  that  there  was  any  differ 
ence  in  human  quality  between  themselves  and 
the  haughtiest  of  the  people  in  what  was  called 
society  had  never  entered  into  the  head  of  any 
living  Leete  until  Celia  was  sent  to  a  boarding- 
school  in  the  Orange  Mountains,  the  year  that 
they  thought  her  lungs  were  weak. 

The  Leetes  had,  like  other  folks,  their  own 
little  foot-rule  to  measure  the  world  with,  and 
they  used  it  with  stern  and  unimaginative  jus 
tice.  They  measured  all  people  with  it — king 
and  clodhopper,  poet  and  peasant.  If  you  fell 
below  what  they  held  to  be  proper  stature  of 
man,  they  might  recognize  you  in  your  place 
as  a  fellow-mortal  and  a  factor  in  the  affairs  of 
life  ;  but  they  would  have  none  of  you  socially. 


48  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

If  you  touched  the  exact  mark,  you  were  a 
"gentleman"  or  a  "lady,"  as  the  case  might 
be.  If — by  mischance — you  rose  above  that 
fixed  line — why,  there  was  something  wrong 
about  you,  that  was  sure ;  at  the  best,  you 
were  queer,  and  queer  was  a  word  of  serious 
condemnation  in  the  Leete  vocabulary. 

As  an  instance  of  this  impartiality  in  judg 
ment,  let  us  take  the  case  of  the  Wykoffs.  The 
Wykoffs  were  the  owners  of  the  whole  block  in 
which  Mr.  Leete's  factory  stood,  and  for  thirty 
years  old  John  Wykoff  had  been  a  model  land 
lord.  That  is,  he  had  treated  Mr.  Leete  like 
a  gentleman,  and  Mr.  Leete  had  treated  him 
like  a  gentleman,  and  everything  was  perfectly 
satisfactory.  But  now  John  Wykoff  was  dead, 
and  his  son  reigned  in  his  place,  and  it 
appeared  that  this  young  whippersnapper  of  a 
Randolph  Wykoff,  through  his  lawyers,  had 
ordered  that  Mr.  Leete's  lease  should  not  be 
renewed  when  his  five  years  came  to  an  end  in 
the  spring.  The  lease  was  not  to  be  renewed 
that  had  been  renewed  once  every  five  years 
since  1862.  The  rent  had  always  been  paid 
promptly — John  Wykoff  had  never  had  to 
wait  a  day  or  an  hour,  nor*  had  he  ever  been 
called  upon  to  pay  a  cent  for  repairs.  And 
here  was  this  young  pup  of  a  son  turning  out 
his  best  tenant,  just  for  some  crazy  scheme  of 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  49 

building  a  great  co-operative  factory  to  cover 
the  whole  block.  John  Wykoff  was  a  perfect 
gentleman,  but  his  son  was  no  gentleman  at 
all,  that  was  one  thing  sure  and  settled. 

"  But  I'll  give  him  a  piece  of  my  mind,"  said 
Mr.  Leete,  at  dinner.  "  I'll  give  him  a  piece 
of  my  mind  when  he  comes  back  from  galli 
vanting  about  Europe.  Gimme  some  more 
cabbage,  Ma  Leete ;  I  ain't  lost  my  appetite, 
if  the  Wykoffs  have  gone  back  on  me." 
****** 

Celia  Leete,  whose  brief  experience  of  a 
strange  social  world  had  led  her  to  doubt  the 
accuracy  and  the  usefulness  of  the  Leete  foot- 
rule,  sat  alone,  on  this  particular  afternoon,  in 
the  chamber  which  she  shared  with  Dorinda. 
She  was  trying  to  read  a  novel  of  local  manu 
facture,  which,  according  to  a  press-notice 
quoted  from  the  Peoria  Palladium,  gave  "  a 
vivid  glimpse  into  the  highest  stratum  of  New 
York's  most  exclusive  society."  It  told  about 
a  young  country-girl,  of  overpowering  refine 
ment  and  general  moral  and  mental  correct 
ness,  who  had  come  to  New  York  to  pay  a 
visit  to  some  worldly  and  aristocratic  relations, 
several  of  whom  she  lured  into  righteousness 
during  her  stay.  This  young  lady  was  finally 
saved  from  the  wiles  of  a  titled  foreign  adven 
turer  by  the  interposition  of  the  hero,  a  dark 

4 


50  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

and  superficially  cynical  person  who  had 
sounded  all  the  depths  and  heights  of  swell- 
ness,  and  who,  finding  all  things  else  hollow 
and  objectionable,  married  her  and  took  her 
off  to  do  missionary  work  in  the  far  West, 
where  he  felt  that  he  could  readily  win  the  con 
fidence  and  friendship  of  the  miners  and  the 
Red  Indians,  and  let  the  light  of  apostolic 
Episcopalianism  into  their  darkened  lives. 

Celia  Leete  was  not  successful  in  her  at 
tempt  to  read  this  tender  tale.  She  had  got  it 
out  of  the  Mercantile  Library  on  the  strength 
of  the  advertisement  which  quoted  the  Peoria 
Palladium  s  notice.  Almost  all  the  characters 
had  names  that  began  with  "Van  "  or  "  Van- 
der,"  and  the  dinner-table  talk  and  ball-room 
chat  were  of  an  elegance  that  would  have  been 
intolerable  in  any  but  the  very  highest  stratum 
of  society.  Yet  Celia  was  not  pleased  with  it. 
She  longed  for  a  higher  social  life  ;  but  this  was 
too  much  for  her.  Her  desire  had  in  it  a  more 
modest  working.  She  even  wondered  whether 
it  was  true  or  not — she  wondered  if  the  man 
who  had  written  that  book  knew  anything 
more  about  the  life  he  described  than  she  did 
herself.  It  was  a  puzzling  thing.  She  wanted 
to  be  "nice;"  but  what  was  it,  in  fact,  to  be 
"  nice  "  ?  Was  it  to  talk  in  that  long-winded 
way,  and  make  references  to  all  sorts  of  things 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  $1 

which  could  only  be  learned  out  of  books? 
If  it  was,  it  must  be  desperately  stupid.  She 
wished  that  she  had  some  clear  idea  of  what 
really  constituted  that  better  life  which  she 
knew  existed  —  somewhere,  somehow.  She 
wished  that  some  sudden  miracle  would  open 
a  higher  circle  of  society  (she  believed  in  "  cir 
cles;"  nay,  in  iron-bound  rings  of  society)  to 
the  Leete  family,  and  that  all  of  them  might 
be  given  a  supernatural  grace  to  fit  them  for 
their  new  surroundings. 

Yes,  she  was  looking  for  the  Fairy  Prince  ; 
that  was  it.  She  did  not  know  it,  but  she  was 
looking  for  him.  If  she  could  have  seen  deep 
enough  into  the  depths  of  her  unformulated 
fancy,  she  would  have  seen  that  the  miracle 
she  awaited  was  a  man. 

She  let  her  eyes  wander  idly  about  the 
room,  as  she  dropped  the  book  on  her  lap. 
They  rested  first  on  Dorinda's  bureau,  splen 
dent  with  chromo  cards  of  variegated  gor- 
geousness ;  and  she  sighed.  Then  they  fell  on 
her  own  severely  simple  chest  of  drawers — 
those  her  mother  had  owned  in  her  girlhood. 
Then  they  turned  to  the  window,  and  she 
looked  out,  and  sighed  again,  and  saw  the 
Fairy  Prince. 

For  the  Fairy  Prince  still  comes  among  us, 
in  spite  of  what  the  photographers  of  fiction 


52  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

say ;  and  every  now  and  then  he  marries  the 
beggar  maid,  and  takes  her  home  to  live  with 

oo 

his  people,  and  is  mightily  sorry  for  it  after 
ward,  although,  as  his  antique  prototype  most 
likely  did,  he  makes  shift  to  live  happily 
with  her  ever  after — before  the  eyes  of  the 
world. 

The  Fairy  Prince  was  instantly  recognizable 
to  Celia's  eyes,  although  I  am  afraid  other 
people  would  have  seen  in  him  no  more  than 
a  good-looking,  robust  young  man,  with 
shoulders  so  broad  that  they  drew  attention 
from  his  six  feet  of  stature — a  young  man 
with  a  well-bred  carriage,  a  healthy,  dark  skin, 
fine  eyes  under  soft,  heavy,  black  eyebrows, 
good  teeth,  and  the  promise  of  a  moustache — 
a  young  man  with  an  expression  of  dignified 
earnestness  upon  his  face  which  suggested  the 
idea  that  he  took  things  in  this  world  some 
what  seriously,  and  regarded  his  own  progress 
through  it  as  an  event  not  to  be  lightly  con 
sidered.  In  short,  other  people  would  have 
seen  just  such  a  young  man  a?  Harvard  Col 
lege  turns  out  by  the  dozen,  into  a  gibing, 
vulgar  world,  too  much  given  to  levity. 

But  Celia  saw  in  this  stranger,  as  he  stood 
at  her  father's  gate,  a  vast  deal  more  than 
this.  Perhaps  she  could  not  have  told  us  any 
thing  further  about  him  than  that  he  was  "  dif- 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  53 

ferent."  Different,  she  meant,  from  the  men 
she  knew  in  her  daily  life,  with  a  difference 
that  was  not  only  in  looks  and  in  bearing,  but 
that  even  went,  to  her  perception,  to  his  very 
garments,  or  at  least  to  his  way  of  wearing  a 
very  plain  every-day  suit  of  tweed. 

He  felt  about  the  gate  for  a  bell-handle, 
and,  not  finding  it,  pushed  in  and  walked  up 
the  path,  casting  an  inquiring  glance  upward 
as  he  went,  and  catching  a  glimpse  of  Celia  at 
her  upper  window.  In  another  moment  his 
ring  clanged  through  the  empty  house.  Mrs. 
Leete  was  making  purchases  for  the  house 
hold  against  Sunday.  Dorinda  was  buying 
unnecessary  personal  adornments  at  twenty- 
seven  cents  and  thirty-nine  cents  apiece,  as 
was  her. wont  of  a  Saturday  afternoon.  Mr. 
Leete  and  Alonzo  were  still  at  the  factory,  for 
it  was  pay-day,  and  they  stayed  later  than  the 
hands.  And  Susan,  the  "help,"  was  enjoying 
herself  at  the  eleventh  annual  picnic  of  the 
Daughters  of  Temperance  and  Grand  Re- 
bekah  Protective  Lodge.  It  was  clear  that 
Celia  had  to  go  down-stairs  and  answer  the 
bell.  Why  should  it  make  her  heart  flutter 
and  throb  with  wild  and  irrational  disturbance 
just  to  open  the  door  to  a  stranger  of  amiable 
and  pacific  appearance? 

She  hurried  down  the  stairs,  after  a  hasty 


54  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

glance  at  the  mirror  and  the  administration  of 
a  deft  pat  or  two  to  what  she  called,  I  am 
sorry  to  say,  her  drapery.  She  wondered  how 
she  would  look  to  such  alien  eyes.  She  wished 
that  she  were  in  her  white  flannel,  her  dearest 
dress;  but  there  was  no  time  for  vain  wishing, 
and  she  opened  the  door. 

He  had  not  vanished  :  he  was  there,  raising 
his  hat  and  asking  if  this  were  Mr.  Leete's 
house.  The  quiet  deference  of  his  manner, 
his  low,  clear  voice,  his  somewhat  unfamiliar 
accent,  all  caught  her  pleased  attention  and 
fitted  with  his  outward  seeming  into  one  har 
monious  whole  that  to  Celia  appeared  nothing 
short  of  absolute  masculine  perfection.  It 
was  like  a  dream  coming  true ;  it  was  as 
though  a  more  than  human  messenger  had 
arrived,  to  summon  her  to  that  world  which 
she  pictured  only  in  her  thoughts.  She  won 
dered  if  her  voice  was  trembling,  or  if  her  face 
•was  white.  Meanwhile  the  young  gentleman 
looked  up  at  what  he  believed  was  the  pretti 
est  girl  he  had  ever  seen,  and  heard  her  say, 
softly  and  sweetly : 

"Yes,  this  is  Mr.  Leete's  house;  but  my 
father  is  not  in.  Do  you  want  to  see  him  ?  " 

Perhaps  Celia  put  forward  her  relationship 
to  Mr.  Leete  thus  promptly,  because  of  some 
faint  fear  that  the  Fairy  Prince  might  take  her 


NATURAL   SELECTION.  55 

for    the    house-maid,    though    nothing   in    his 
courtly  manner  suggested  the  idea. 

"I  do  wish  to  see  Mr.  Leete,"  he  said,  and 
Celia  thought  again  that  his  voice  was  quite  in 
keeping  with  his  other  perfections.  "  My/ 
name  is  Wykoff — Randolph  WykofT — and  I 
am  anxious  to  speak  to  Mr.  Leete  on  a  matter 
of  business.  I  am  afraid  he  has  been  greatly 
annoyed  by  an  error — an  inadvertence  of  my 
agents." 

"  Won't  you  come  in  ?  "  asked  Celia.  Ran 
dolph  Wykoff !  There  was  no  doubt  about 
this  young  monarch's  pedigree  or  his  posses 
sions. 

"I'm  afraid  I  haven't  time,"  Mr.  Wykoff 
said,  as  he  stepped  into  the  entry  and  told  his 
tale  with  a  flattering  deference  in  his  manner. 

"  Of  course  I  didn't  mean,  when  I  made  up 
my  mind  to  build  on  that  unfortunate  block — 
I  didn't  mean  to  give  annoyance  to  any  of  the 
tenants — certainly  not  to  Mr.  Leete.  I  have 
always  heard  my  father  speak  of  Mr.  Leete  in 
the  highest  terms — he  has  often  said  that  he 
would  rather  lose  all  the  rest  of  his  tenants 
than  Mr.  Leete." 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  John  Wykoff 
had  ever  said  anything  quite  so  enthusiastic; 
but  his  son  was  young  and  impulsive,  and  Mr. 
Leete's  daughter  was  very  pretty. 


56  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

"  I  should  like  very  much  to  leave  a  message 
for  Mr.  Leete,  if  it  wouldn't  trouble  you  too 
much.  No  ?  Well,  then,  you  see — 

Randolph  Wykoff  was  in  Yokohama  when 
the  news  of  his  father's  death  reached  him. 
He  started  for  home  at  once,  by  way  of 
Europe,  for  he  had  some  business  in  Belgium. 
He  was  a  very  young  man,  and  as  soon  as  he 
began  to  think  of  anything  outside  of  his 
immediate  grief,  he  found  his  whole  mind 
occupied  with  the  consideration  of  his  vast 
responsibility  as  the  custodian  of  a  mighty  for 
tune.  He  felt  that  it  was  his  duty  to  do  some 
thing  for  the  world.  He  could  not  tell  exactly 
what  he  ought  to  do ;  but  he  felt  that  the 
world  expected  something  of  him,  and  he  set 
to  work  at  once,  hunting  for  a  rich  man's  mis 
sion.  Now,  he  had  heard  of  a  certain  model 
usine  near  Brussels,  and  he  stopped  on  his 
homeward  way  to  inspect  it.  It  was  in  truth 
an  ingeniously  planned  structure.  By  a  clever 
economy  in  the  design  and  in  the  application 
of  steam-power,  it  gave  cheap  and  suitable 
lodgment  to  a  large  number  of  workers  in  vari 
ous  handicrafts,  forming  a  congeries  of  facto 
ries  and  workshops  within  a  wonderfully  small 
space.  It  was,  in  its  way,  a  nineteenth-century 
marvel  of  saving  in  space  and  power.  Wykoff 
decided  at  once  that  a  similar  building  should 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  57 

take  the  place  of  the  motley  group  of  wasteful 
old  buildings  on  his  Houston  Street  block;  and 
he  instantly  telegraphed  his  determination  to 
his  lawyers  in  New  York,  and  instructed  them 
not  to  renew  leases.  But  his  brief  instructions 
did  not  make  clear  the  fact  that  he  meant  only 
to  give  his  tenants  a  little  temporary  trouble 
for  their  own  permanent  good  ;  and  when  he 
reached  New  York,  he  had  to  face  a  storm  of 
protests  from  angry  leaseholders.  These  peo 
ple  he  was  now  striving  to  placate,  and  to  win 
over  to  his  new  plans.  And  as  the  plans  were 
really  good — as  he  had  stumbled  on  a  wise 
enterprise  in  all  honest  ignorance — and  as  he 
went  about  his  work  with  much  youthful  en 
thusiasm,  he  had  less  trouble  than  might  have 
been  looked  for. 

Much  of  all  this  did  Mr.  Randolph  Wykoff 
communicate  to  Miss  Celia  Leete.  But  even 
after  an  exposition  so  long  that  he  had  hardly 
time,  when  he  left  the  house,  to  catch  the 
train  for  his  mother's  summer  home  at  East 
Hampton — even  after  so  long  a  parley,  he 
thought  it  necessary  to  see  Mr.  Leete  agam, 
and  in  Mr.  Leete's  house. 

"  Of  course,"  he  said,  "  I  could  see  him  at  his 
office ;  but  I  must  show  him  my  plans,  and  my 
architect's  place  is  very  near  here  in  Broadway, 
and  unless " 


58  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

He  paused. 

"  I'm  sure  father  would  be  very  glad  to  see 
you  here,  Mr.  Wykoff,"  said  Celia.  What 
could  she  say  else  ? 

So  it  was  arranged  that  Mr.  Wykoff  should 
call  on  Monday,  just  after  dinner ;  and  Mr. 
Wykoff  took  the  glory  of  his  presence  cut  of 
the  dark  old  entry,  and  Celia  stood  in  the 
doorway  just  long  enough  to  see  the  Fairy 
Prince  turn  at  the  gate  and  lift  his  hat  to  her. 
Then  she  went  in  and  shut  the  door — and  hid 
her  face  in  her  hands. 

*  %  *  •&  *  -x- 

It  was  a  grand  story  that  Celia  had  to  tell  a 
little  later,  while  her  mother  and  Dorinda  were 
setting  the  table,  and  Popper  Leete  sat  in  his 
shirt-sleeves,  with  his  stocking-feet  on  the  win 
dow-sill,  and  divided  his  attention  between  the 
evening  paper  and  his  chattering  family.  The 
visit  of  a  stranger  was  always  an  event  of  some 
importance  in  that  quiet  household ;  surely  a 
visitor  with  such  a  mission  was  a  rare  bird,  and 
one  to  be  well  talked  over.  And  then,  I  regret 
to  say,  there  was  something  in  the  fact  that 
the  visitor  was  a  Wykoff,  something  in  the  fact 
that  the  Wykoffs  were  "  swells."  Not  that  a 
Wykoff  was  better  than  any  other  man ;  not 
that  a  swell  did  not  deserve  the  contempt  of 
plain  people  with  no  nonsense  about  them — 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  59 

and  yet  I  believe  that  every  member  of  that 
family  was  secretly  conscious  of  receiving  an 
increment  of  social  value  from  the  fact  that  a 
Wyk'off  had  stood  within  their  doors.  Some 
how  it  emphasized  the  fact  of  their  common 
humanity.  They  all  felt  freshly  reassured  of 
the  great  truth — which  they  had  always  known 
— that  they  might  be  swells  themselves,  if  they 
would  but  stoop  to  it. 

"  I  told  you,  Popper  Leete,"  said  his  wife,  as 
she  trotted  about  the  room ;  "  I  told  you  folks 
like  the  Wykoffs  ain't  likely  to  play  such  mean 
tricks  as  that.  It  ain't  their  way.  I  declare, 
Celia,  how  many  napkins  have  you  had  this 
week?  Now,  I  see  your  ring  when  you  put  it 
away  yesterday,  an'  it  was  jest  as  clean  as  it 
could  be,  that  napkin.  If  you're  so  mighty 
finicky,  you'd  better  wash  'em  yourself." 

Mr.  Leete  took  Wykoff' s  explanation  as  an 
admission  of  defeat.  There  are  some  people 
who  cannot  bear  to  own  that  they  have  been 
angry  for  naught. 

"  I  thought  he'd  come  to  his  senses,"  Popper 
Leete  condescended  to  say  ;  "  he's  a  young 
feller,  an'  he's  got  suthin'  to  learn  in  this  world, 
he'll  find  in  good  time.  I  give  those  lawyers 
a  piece  of  my  mind  that  time,  an'  I  guess  he 
heard  of  it.  Yes,  I'm  glad  he's  come  to  his 
senses." 


60  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

"  What'd  he  look  like,  Cele  ?  "  Dorinda  pes 
tered  her;  "  was  he  reel  good-lookin' ?  Did  he 
have  dimun'  studs  in  his  shirt?  They  say  it's 
awfle  toneyin  England  to  have  dimun'  studs." 

Alonzo  was  the  only  one  who  took  no  inter 
est  in  the  evening's  topic  of  conversation.  His 
air  of  chill  indifference  showed  that  if  young 
Mr.  Wykoff  were  twenty  young  Mr.  Wykoffs, 
he  would  have  to  prove  his  claims  to  notice 
before  Alonzo  Leete  would  waste  a  single 
question  upon  him. 

****** 

Mr.  Wykoff  appeared  promptly  at  one 
o'clock  on  the  Monday.  He  had  a  long  talk 
with  Mr.  Leete  in  the  dining-room,  and  spread 
his  plans  out  on  the  broad  table.  When  Mr. 
Leete  saw  that  for  the  same  rent  he  was  then 
paying  he  could  have  a  larger  factory,  and  that 
the  progress  of  construction  could  be  so  ar 
ranged  as  to  obviate  all  necessity  for  a  double 
removal  of  his  goods  and  chattels,  he  expressed 
a  qualified  approval  of  Mr.  Wykoff's  proposi 
tion.  When  he  pointed  out  a  few  changes  in 
the  plans  which  he  thought  would  better  fit 
them  for  American  conditions,  and  the  sugges 
tions  were  gratefully  accepted,  he  in  some 
manner  fathered  the  whole  scheme. 

After  the  business-talk  Mr.  Wykoff  went 
into  the  parlor,  where  the  ladies  of  the  family 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  6l 

had  assembled,  and  lingered  for  a  little  chat. 
He  found  a  theme  in  his  recent  travels,  and  he 
got  on  nobly  when  his  auditors  discovered  that, 
while  he  had  no  objectionable  personal  acquaint 
ance  with  the  royal  family  of  England,  yet  he 
had  seen  the  Queen  and  the  Prince  of  Wales 
and  smaller  lights  of  the  reigning  house,  and 
could  tell  many  entertaining  things  of  their 
appearance  in  public,  their  manners,  and  their 
ways.  With  a  tact  which  comes  to  a  young 
man  only  under  certain  circumstances,  he  sup 
pressed  the  fact  that  he  had  been  presented 
at  court,  and  said  nothing  of  driving  in  coro- 
neted  carriages  and  dining  at  the  tables  of  the 
great.  The  chat  stretched  out  ;  it  was  past 
three  when  Celia  tied  up  his  plans  for  him,  and 
he  took  his  leave. 

Dorinda  thought  him  a  reel  elegant  gentle- 
m'n,  and  Mrs.  Leete  said  :  "  Why,  /  think  he's 
a  nice,  pleasant-spoken,  well-behaved  young 
feller.  I  ain't  seen  a  young  man  I  liked  so  well 
in  some  time." 

It  is  a  simple  tale.  Mr.  Wykoff  found  occa 
sion  to  come  again  with  his  plans,  that  he 
might  avail  himself  of  Mr.  Leete's  superior 
knowledge  of  the  exigencies  of  practical  busi 
ness.  Then  he  found  still  other  occasions. 
When  the  actual  work  of  building  began,  and 
he  had  to  superintend  it,  he  fell  into  a  way  of 


62  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

walking  home  with  Mr.  Leete,  and  dropping 
in  for  a  friendly  call — sometimes  to  share  a 
meal.  He  was  received  with  a  shy  welcome 
of  subtle  significance  from  Celia,  and  with  a 
flattered  and  fluttering  cordiality  on  the  part 
of  the  rest  of  the  family.  Even  Alonzo  was 
willing  to  say,  in  casual  conversation  with  his 
friends:  "  Wykofi— that's  Randolph  Wykoff, 
old  John  Wykoff's  son — was  in  at  our  house 
last  night,  and  he  said — 

But  at  last  they  all  understood  why  he 
sought  their  society,  and  that  was  the  drop  of 
acid  in  the  cloudy  solution.  There  were  five 
different  individual  reactions  in  the  family  of 
Leete.  To  Celia  came  the  consciousness  of  a 
great  and  closely  impending  possibility.  Her 
father  was  disturbed  in  mind,  suspicious,  and 
anxious.  He  had  sufficient  knowledge  of  the 
world  to  grasp  the  fact  that  men  held,  in  such 
matters,  widely  differing  codes  of  morality. 
He  had  no  idea  what  Mr.  Wykoff's  code  might 
be.  The  young  man  seemed  a  well-meaning 
youth — but  what  were  his  intentions  ?  Dorinda 
had  similar  doubts,  and  the  thought  of  losing 
her  only  sister,  coupled,  perhaps,  with  a  trifle 
of  natural  jealousy,  moved  her  to  an  enmity 
toward  the  intruder  which  she  could  hardly 
repress.  As  to  Alonzo,  he  was  wounded  past 
all  soothing — wounded  in  the  inmost  tender- 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  63 

ness  of  a  hidden  pride.  For  Alonzo's  heart 
worshipped  what  his  lips  contemned.  In  his 
secret  soul  he  adored  swelldom.  And  now  the 
aristocracy  had  held  out  its  shapely  hand  to 
him,  and  for  a  brief  space  he  had  hugged  the 
delusion  that  he  was  accepted  on  his  own 
merits,  and  that  the  disadvantages  of  his  par 
entage  and  his  surroundings — which  he  recog 
nized,  and  yet  loyally  accepted — did  not  count 
against  him  personally.  And  now  he  found 
that  he  was  only  the  brother  of  a  pretty  girl. 
His  spirit  was  filled  with  a  bitterness  that 
nourished  itself  in  silence,  and  the  dreadful 
things  that  he  expected  to  come  of  the  unhal 
lowed  courtship  are  beyond  all  mentioning 
here.  Good  Mrs.  Leete  alone  stood  Wykoff's 
friend  in  his  wooing,  and  her  simple,  honest 
breast  heaved  with  motherly  pride  and  fond, 
foolish  hopes  and  aspirations. 

And  meanwhile  Randolph  Wykoff  kept  on 
calling,  and  seemed  totally  unconscious  of  any 
loss  of  spontaneity  or  heartiness  in  his  welcome 
at  the  house  of  the  Leetes ;  and  late  in  Sep 
tember  he  and  Celia  told  each  other  that  love 
at  first  sight  was  a  living  truth.  After  which, 
Randolph  went  home  to  tell  his  mother. 


64  NATURAL    SELECTION. 


PART    II. 

DANDOLPH'S  communication  was  not  a 
*^  surprise  to  his  mother.  In  such  matters 
the  maternal  instinct  needs  but  a  small  clew 
for  its  wonderful  intuitive  processes.  It  is  not 
often  that  a  young  man  surprises  his  mother 
in  this  sort  of  avowal.  There  are  such  cases, 
but  they  are  rare.  I  knew  one  dear  old  lady 
whose  son  took  her  aside  one  day.  "I'm  en 
gaged,"  he  said.  "  I  know  it,  dear,"  the  sweet 
old  gentlewoman  replied,  "  and  I  wish  you 
would  tell  Sally  Hastings  that  I  shall  love  her  as 
though  she  were  my  own  daughter."  "  But  it 
isn't  Sally  Hastings,  mother,"  said  the  young 
man,  who  had  never  been  a  steadfast  young 
man  ;  "  it's  Miss  Mcllvaine,  from  Tonawanda." 
Mrs.  Wykoff  had  known  for  some  months 
that  her  son  was  a  constant  visitor  at  the  Leetes'. 
She  knew  that  there  were  two  girls  in  the  fam 
ily,  and  that  the  younger  was  a  pretty  girl,  and 
superior  to  the  rest  of  the  Leetes  in  taste  and 
education.  She  knew,  also,  that  however  val 
uable  Mr.  Leete's  aid  and  advice  might  be  to 
her  son,  the  young  man's  enthusiasm  for  his 
new  work  was  not  great  enough  to  make  him 
forget  a  social  code  acquired  by  inheritance, 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  6$ 

inculcated  in  early  youth,  and  ratified  by  the 
authority  of  Harvard  College.  There  was  but 
one  interpretation  to  be  put  upon  his  devotion 
to  these  new  friends. 

All  this  Mrs.  Wykoff  knew  from  the  little  her 
son  had  told  her.  It  was  little  enough.  Ran 
dolph  was  not  secretive  or  deceitful,  but  he 
rarely  talked  personalities,  and  of  his  own 
doings  he  spoke  no  oftenerthan  was  necessary. 
He  had  a  young  man's  sensitiveness  to  the 
criticism  and  comment  that  fall  to  the  lot  of 
the  open-mouthed  enthusiast.  And  then  his 
position  was  not  so  clear  to  himself  that  he 
could  make  it  clear  to  others.  Do  not  blame 
him.  If  you  were  falling  deeper  and  deeper 
into  love,  and  knew  that  the  object  of  your 
affections  could  not  be  acceptable  to  your  kind 
parents,  would  you  issue  daily  bulletins  of  the 
progress  of  your  case,  with  conscientious  diagno 
sis  and  prognosis  ?  Was  there  ever  a  pair  of  lov 
ers  who  did  not  yearn  to  keep  their  common  joy 
eternally  a  selfish  secret  ?  Frown  all  you  care 
to,  stern  censor  ;  if  all  the  lovers  had  their  way, 
there  would  not  be  desert  islands  enough  to  go 
around. 

Mrs.  Wykoff  knew  something  and  guessed  a 
great  deal,  yet  she  could  not  act  either  on  the  cer 
tainty  or  the  suspicion.  She  knew  that  she  could 
not  oppose  Randolph.  He  had  all  his  father's 


66  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

self-confidence  and  stubborn  courage  without 
— the  widow  sadly  thought — without,  as  yet, 
John  Wykoff's  clear  judgment,  fine  sense  of 
right  and  wrong,  and  unselfish  devotion  to 
principle. 

John  Wykoff's  wife  knew  well  the  Wykoff 
strain.  She  married  John  Wykoff  when  his 
father,  by  ill-judged  speculations,  had  ruined 
not  himself  only  but  all  the  Wykoff  family,  root 
and  branch,  and  had  made  himself  hated  by 
the  whole  body  of  his  kith  and  kin.  She  had 
been  her  husband's  best  friend  and  counsellor 
through  all  the  years  it  took  to  build  up  again 
the  great  shipping  house  of  Wykoff  &  Son,  and 
during  those  years  she  had  led  a  pinched,  nar 
row,  meagre  life.  Then,  when  the  new  fort 
une  was  made,  and  the  honor  and  credit  of  the 
old  firm  reestablished,  it  was  her  tact  that 
won  them  admission  to  the  society  from  which 
Grandfather  Wykoff's  recklessness  and  their 
own  poverty  had  exiled  them.  It  was  her  task 
to  renew  old  associations,  to  strengthen  long- 
enfeebled  ties,  to  close  up  breaches,  and  nego 
tiate  reconciliations.  She  had  to  bear  snubs 
and  slights  ;  she  had  to  win  her  right  to  respect 
and  esteem  in  a  long  and  hard  fight ;  and  all 
that  she  had  to  do  and  bear  was  done  and 
borne,  not  for  her  own  sake,  but  for  the  sake  of 
her  husband  and  her  boy.  For  herself  she  had 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  67 

no  need  to  take  thought  ;  she  was  a  Broadwood, 
of  Philadelphia,  and  her  family  thought  that 
she  lowered  herself  when  she  married  the  son 
of  a  bankrupt  Wykoff. 

The  struggle  had  ended  years  ago,  and  now 
Mrs.  Wykoff  was  a  widow,  still  handsome,  rich 
in  money  and  in  friends.  The  discipline  of 
her  life  had  not  been  lost  on  her.  Her  nature, 
that  was  always  sweet,  had  grown  strong  in 
troublous  times,  and  she  was,  at  forty-five,  a 
chastened  woman  of  the  world.  I  think  the 
world  makes  as  many  saints  as  sinners. 

She  received  her  son's  story  with  a  calm  ac 
ceptance  of  the  situation  that  ought  to  have 
put  him  on  his  guard.  To  be  sure,  she  cried  a 
little,  but  only  for  a  moment ;  and  for  the  rest 
she  was  all  loving  interest  and  attention.  It 
must  be  said  for  Randolph  that,  having  come 
to  confession,  he  made  a  good,  honest,  clean 
breast  of  it.  He  made  no  attempt  to  put  an 
imaginative  gilding  on  the  Leetes.  In  speak 
ing  of  the  family  he  dwelt  only  on  their  unim 
peachable  probity  and  respectability.  Of  Celia 
he  could  truthfully  say  that  her  manners  and 
her  speech  were  correct.  If  he  dwelt  too  much 
on  her  intelligence,  on  her  cleverness,  and  on 
her  understanding  of  and  sympathy  with  his 
hopes  and  ambitions,  it  must  be  kept  in  mind 
that  Celia  was  an  uncommonly  good  listener. 


68  NATURAL    SELECTION, 

"  I  am  thinking  of  your  happiness,  my  dear," 
his  mother  said  ;  "  I  trust  I  am  not  selfish.  I 
could  have  wished,  of  course,  that  it  had  been 
some  one  who — some  one  whom  I  knew  and 
loved,  but — 

There  lurked  in  this  broken  sentence  an  allu 
sion  that  Randolph  understood — an  allusion  to 
a  cherished  hope  of  his  mother's.  Perhaps  he 
felt  in  some  way  guilty,  for  he  made  no  direct 
reply,  saying  only : 

"  You  will  know  Celia,  mother,  and  you  will 
love  her.  You  cannot  help  it." 

"  I  hope  so,"  said  the  poor  woman,  with  the 
best  smile  that  she  had  for  the  occasion. 
"  When  shall  I  see  her  ?  Would  it  not  be  well 
for  me  to  call  on  her  mother?  " 

Randolph  Wykoff  went  away  from  this  inter 
view  with  an  easy  mind  and  a  heart  filled  with 
loving  admiration  of  his  mother.  She  was  a 
wonderful  woman,  he  thought,  thus  to  com 
bine  feminine  gentleness  with  masculine  com 
mon-sense.  How  kindly  and  how  wisely  she 
had  taken  it !  It  did  not  come  into  his  mind 
that  in  the  course  of  that  brief  conversation  he 
had  been  led  to  propose  and  to  pledge  himself 
to  two  things  which  he  had  never  thought  of 
before — first,  that  there  should  be  no  announce 
ment  of  his  engagement  to  Celia — no  actual  en 
gagement,  in  fact — for  a  year  to  come  ;  second, 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  69 

that  the  engagement  should  be  of  not  less  than 
a  year's  duration  from  the  date  of  the  announce 
ment.  These  two  ideas  seemed  to  have  been 
of  his  own  conception.  He  knew,  or  he  thought 
he  knew,  how  much  personal  annoyance  his 
marriage  to  Celia  Leete  would  bring  him.  He 
had  no  desire  to  add  to  this  annoyance,  or  be 
guilty  of  a  precipitancy  which  he  himself  could 
not  excuse.  His  world  would  be  ill-spoken 
enough  ;  it  was  not  for  him  to  justify  unkind 
criticism.  It  came  to  him  as  the  most  natural 
thing  imaginable  that  Celia  Leete  ought  to 
be  introduced  to  some  of  his  friends,  at  least, 
as  Celia  Leete,  before  they  knew  her  as  his 
betrothed.  And  he  could  hardly  get  his  pres 
ent  business  off  his  hands  and  feel  free  to 
devote  himself  to  a  wife  short  of  a  year  or  two 
of  hard  work. 

Three  days  later  Mrs.  Wykoff  was  sitting  in 
the  darkened  front  parlor  of  the  Leete  house 
on  the  hair-cloth  sofa  under  the  chromo  of  the 
"  Old  Oaken  Bucket."  On  the  opposite  wall 
hung  the  ambrotype  of  Mrs.  Leete's  mother, 
taken  at  the  age  of  eighty-seven.  Mrs.  Leete's 
mother  showed  a  mouth  that  seemed  to  be 
simply  a  straight  line  where  the  lips  turned 
in.  What  little  hair  she  had  hung  in  a  large 
flat  festoon  on  either  side  of  her  head.  A 
broad  lace  collar  covered  her  shoulders.  It  was 


7O  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

fastened  under  the  chin  by  a  brooch  of  vast 
size,  which  was,  in  fact,  a  box  with  a  glass 
front,  designed,  apparently,  to  contain  speci 
mens  of  the  hair  of  deceased  members  of  the 
wearer's  family,  after  the  depressing  fashion  of 
the  days  of  ambrotypes  and  inchoate  civiliza 
tion.  On  the  face  of  Mrs.  Leete's  mother  was 
an  expression  of  stern  resolve.  She  was  sitting 
for  her  picture,  and  she  was  sitting  hard. 

Mrs.  Wykoff  was  gazing  hopelessly  at  this 
monument  of  respectability  when  Mrs.  Leete 
entered  the  room,  red  in  the  face  from  a  hasty 
change  of  dress,  and  agitated  by  a  nervousness 
the  existence  of  which  she  would  not  have 
admitted  to  herself. 

Why  does  your  thoroughbred  collie  bark  at 
the  tramp  or  the  peddler  within  your  gates, 
and  greet  shabbiest  gentlehood  with  a  friendly 
wag  of  the  tail  ?  It  is  because  there  is  a  dif 
ference  in  human  beings,  just  as  there  is  in 
dogs,  and  the  dogs  know  it.  The  human 
beings  know  it,  too,  although  there  are  some 
who  belie  their  knowledge — who,  having 
learned  that  the  rank  is  but  the  guinea's  stamp 
and  that  the  man  's  the  gowd  for  a'  that,  go 
about  trying  to  make  themselves  and  others 
believe  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  an  alloy 
in  the  world,  no  counterfeit  coin,  no  base 
metal. 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  7 1 

Mrs.  Leete  was  agitated  even  to  her  inmost 
spiritual  recesses  when  she  saw  this  handsome 
and  well-dressed  woman  rise  and  come  forward 
to  meet  her,  with  such  an  easy  grace  and  dig 
nity — with  such  a  soft  rustling  of  her  black 
raiment.  It  was  five  minutes  at  least  before 
the  perfect  tact  that  went  with  these  outward 
and  visible  things  had  put  the  hostess  at  her 
ease. 

After  a  little,  Celia  came  shyly  into  the 
room,  with  cold  hands  and  a  pale  face.  Mrs. 
Wykoffs  heart  leaped  in  pleased  surprise  when 
she  saw  the  girl  of  her  son's  choice.  She 
kissed  Celia  almost  with  tenderness,  and  she 
felt  a  genuine  thankfulness  for  the  child's  deli 
cate  beauty  and  her  modest  bearing.  "  I  can 
understand  it  now,"  she  thought,  "  and  it  is 
better  than  I  had  dared  to  hope." 

But  presently  in  came  Mr.  Leete,  in  his 
Sunday  broadcloth,  with  a  new  collar  making 
him  very  uncomfortable  about  the  chin,  and 
with  him  came  Dorinda,  red  as  to  her  bodice 
and  black  as  to  her  skirts  and  wonderful  as  to 
the  dressing  of  her  hair,  and  all  was  not  so  well 
with  Mrs.  Wykoff. 

Mrs.  Wykoff's  visit  lasted  scarcely  an  hour, 
yet,  when  she  had  gone,  every  member  of  the 
family  except  Celia  felt  that  affairs  wore  a  new 
and  less  pleasing  aspect.  There  was  no  longer 


72  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

a  delightful  certainty  about  the  prospective 
alliance  of  the  Leetes  to  one  of  the  oldest  and 
wealthiest  families  in  the  country.  Three  days 
before,  Randolph  Wykoff  had  asked  Mr.  Leete 
for  his  daughter's  hand,  and  the  offer  had  been 
accepted  with  no  longer  hesitation  than  was 
absolutely  demanded  by  the  self-respect  of  the 
head  of  the  house.  Since  then,  all  the  family 
had  lived  in  a  rose-tinted  dream.  Now,  Mrs. 
Wykoff's  friendly,  informal  chat  had  somehow 
served  to  marshal  before  their  eyes  an  array  of 
hard,  cold,  unwelcome  facts.  How  had  it  been 
done?  They  did  not  know.  They  could  not 
blame  Mrs.  Wykoff ;  she  had  been  amiability 
itself.  Yet  there  were  the  facts,  patent  to  all  of 
them.  Why,  it  was  Mr.  Leete  himself  who  had 
advanced  the  idea  that  for  two  young  people 
to  talk  of  marriage  after  three  months  of 
acquaintance  was  simply  absurd.  It  was  he 
who  had  said  that  people — he  did  not  perhaps 
know  what  people,  but,  in  fact,  people — would 
comment  with  justifiable  severity  upon  such 
heedless  haste.  Certainly  the  suggestion  that 
at  least  a  year  must  elapse  before  the  announce 
ment  of  the  engagement  had  come  from  him  ; 
and  none  of  the  house  of  Leete  was  sufficiently 
versed  in  the  subtleties  of  polite  diplomacy  to 
inquire  how  the  notion  came  to  Mr.  Leete. 
It  was  at  Popper  Leete,  in  very  truth,  that 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  73 

Mrs.  Wykoff  had  directed  her  masked  batter 
ies,  and  with  more  effect  than  she  suspected. 
She  had  touched  lightly  on  Randolph's  youth, 
his  inexperience,  his  impulsive  nature,  and  she 
had  called  attention  to  the  undeniable  truth 
that  young  men  do  not  always  know  their  own 
minds.  Mr.  Leete  had  taken  the  hint,  and  to 
his  mind  it  had  an  exaggerated  significance. 

"  I  d'no  but  what  she's  right,"  he  said  to  his 
wife  ;  "  mebbe  we've  been  too  easy  about  sayin' 
'  yes.'  She's  a  business-woman,  and  she's  got 
a  good,  sound  head.  Folks  useter  say  that 
John  Wykoff  and  wife  was  as  good  a  busi 
ness  firm  as  there  was  in  town.  Now,  she 
knows  this  young  feller,  an'  what  do  we  know 
about  him  ?  Nothin',  when  you  come  right 
down  to  it.  We  don't  know  what  his  ideas 
are,  or  what  sort  of  a  man  he  is,  anyway.  We 
don't  know  how  he  spends  his  evenin's,  or 
what  he  does  with  himself  when  we  don't  see 
him.  Now,  s'pose  he  was  on'y  foolin'  with 
Celia,  and  was  to  get  tired  of  her  an'  skip  out 
to  Europe,  some  day  eruther?  We  can't  tell. 
S'pose  he  was  to  marry  her  and  then  turn  out 
bad?  Look  at  the  way  them  Newport  folks 
are  all  the  time  gittin'  divorced  an'  bein'  shown 
up  in  the  noozpapers.  How  do  we  know  but 
what  he's  bean  a-makin'  up  to  a  dozen  girls 
over  there  in  Europe.  Now,  reelly,  we  don't 


74  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

know  much  more  about  that  young  man  than 
if  he  was  a  European  himself." 

"  Oh,  Popper  Leete,"  remonstrated  his  wife, 
"  'tain't  so  bad  as  that !  " 

"Well,"  Mr.  Leete  insisted,  shaking  his  head 
in  stubborn  doubt,  "  'tain't  much  better,  when 
you  come  right  down  to  it." 

****** 

There  are  plenty  of  married  couples  in  the 
world  who  can  lay  their  hands  on  their  twain 
hearts  and  unanimously  declare  that  the  time 
of  their  betrothal  was  the  happiest  times  of 
their  lives.  There  are  other  people,  however, 
who  can  as  honestly  say  that  they  were  never 
more  uncomfortable  and  generally  miserable 
than  they  were  in  the  No  Man's  Land  through 
which  civilized  matrimony  must  be  approached. 

Perhaps  the  months  or  years  of  engagement 
may  be  enjoyable  to  those  who  enter  upon 
their  contract  in  a  business-like  and  practical 
spirit,  or  to  those  easy-going  mortals  who  take 
their  love  on  trial,  much  as  they  might  take 
a  type-writer  or  a  patent  lamp.  But  to  two 
young  people  dreadfully  in  love  and  dreadfully 
iri  earnest,  this  stretch  of  time  is  like  the  trying 
pause  when  the  soldier  on  the  battle-field  waits 
for  the  order  to  advance. 

The  woman's  position  is  certainly  doubtful 
and  disagreeable.  She  belongs  neither  to  her 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  ?$ 

parents  nor  to  her  betrothed — not  even  to  her 
self.  Hers  is  the  proud  prerogative  of  decid 
ing  between  blue  and  pink  for  the  dining-room 
paper,  between  script  and  old  English  for  the 
engraving  on  the  spoons — while,  perhaps,  her 
former  owners  and  her  future  owner  are  set 
tling  on  a  religion  for  her  and  for  her  children 
in  posse. 

We  do  not  all  of  us  have  to  suffer  the  possi 
ble  rigors  of  this  state  of  interregnum.  The 
kindly  refinements  of  modern  life  make  the 
situation  as  agreeable  as  may  be.  Yet,  among 
the  gentlest  and  most  delicate  of  people,  it  is 
often  a  situation  at  best  but  barely  tolerable. 
What  must  it  be  among  people  who  are  not 
given  to  yielding  to  others,  and  who  are  given 
to  speaking  their  minds — those  hastily  made-up 
minds  which,  for  the  most  part,  were  best  left 
unspoken? 

It  was  a  cock-sure  and  outspoken  family  into 
which  Randolph  Wykoff  had  tumbled  ;  and  one 
that  had  well-defined  opinions  on  all  matters 
of  personal  conduct,  and  wanted  no  new  lights 
from  any  source.  And  as  Randolph  himself 
could  be  cock-sure  on  occasion,  and  as  he  cer 
tainly  had  not  come  down  to  Chelsea  Village 
to  seek  illumination  on  any  dark  points  of 
social  doctrine,  a  clash  was  inevitable,  and  the 
clash  came  promptly. 


76  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

It  came  when  the  chilling  truth  was  first 
clearly  recognized  by  the  Leetes  that  young 
Mr.  Wykoff  was  engaged  to  Celia  exclusively, 
and  did  not  hold  himself  bound  to  the  rest  of 
the  family  by  any  ties  so  tender.  To  be  sure, 
Wykoff  was  the  soul  of  kindly  courtesy  in  his 
relations  with  them  all,  and  yet,  like  the  old 
farmer  in  Punch,  sipping  airy  champagne  in 
place  of  his  accustomed  old  ale,  they  "  didn't 
seem  to  get  no  forr'ader."  When  Randolph 
broke  one  of  Mrs.  Leete's  teacups,  he  made  the 
accident  an  excuse  for  sending  her  a  full  tea-set 
so  delicate  of  mould  that  Mrs.  Leete  never 
dared  to  use  it.  He  gave  Father  Leete  a 
meerschaum  that  he  had  brought  from  Europe. 
He  adorned  Alonzo's  scarf  with  a  scarabaeus 
of  rare  beauty.  (Alonzo  held  the  gift  but 
lightly  until  it  occurred  to  him  to  have  its 
money  value  appraised  at  a  Broadway  jewel 
ler's.)  He  loaded  Celia  with  gifts,  and  he  did 
not  forget  to  select  for  her  sister,  every  now 
and  then,  a  trinket  of  a  fashion  more  notice 
able  than  he  would  have  held  fitting  for  his 
betrothed.  And  as  for  flowers — he  made  the 
dingy  house  brilliant  with  the  artificial  refine 
ments  of  the  hot-house.  But  beyond  courteous 
speech  and  an  open  hand,  they  soon  found  that 
nothing  was  to  be  expected  of  the  new  comer 
in  the  family  circle. 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  77 

Alonzo  had  to^accept  the  obvious  fact  that 
he  would  never  be  put  up  at  Mr.  Randolph 
Wykoff's  club,  even  if  he  sought  such  an 
honor — which  he  told  his  own  conscience  he 
did  not.  Dorinda  saw  bright  visions  fade 
before  her  eyes  when  she  learned  that  Mr. 
Wykoff,  whether  he  were  in  mourning  or  out 
of  mourning,  was  not  in  the  habit  of  taking  his 
"  lady  friends  "  to  the  public  balls,  and  that  he 
did  not  so  much  as  know  the  "  Triton  "  from 
the  "  Mannerchor."  And  Mrs.  Leete,  while 
she  understood  that  John  Wykoff's  widow  must 
live  for  many  months,  at  least,  in  strict  retire 
ment  from  the  world,  yet  felt  that  it  had  in 
some  subtle  way  been  made  clear  to  her  own 
perceptions  that  the  hand  of  Society  would 
never  be  stretched  out  to  the  Leetes  at  the 
particular  request  of  the  Wykoffs. 

There  was  no  question  about  it,  Mr.  Wykoff 
had  no  proper  sense  of  his  position  as  a  pros 
pective  son-  and  brother-in-law  ;  and  hint  and 
suggestion  fell  upon  his  calm  unconsciousness  of 
his  delinquency  as  little  sparks  upon  the  breast 
of  an  ice-bound  lake.  They  did  their  best  to 
bring  him  to  a  knowledge  of  what  they  called 
among  themselves  "the  proper  thing;"  but 
neither  precept  nor  example  availed  against 
his  vast  innocent  ignorance. 

In   this  he   was   quite   honest,  although   the 


78  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

Leete  family  could  hardly  believe  it.  It  did 
occur  to  him,  at  one  time,  that  he  had  been 
made  to  hear  a  great  deal  about  a  certain  Mr. 
Cargill,  soon  to  be  wedded  to  one  of  Dorinda's 
bosom  friends.  This  gentleman  had  acquired 
what  seemed  to  Randolph  a  strange  habit  of 
taking  his  bride-to-be  and  all  her  family,  in 
cluding  a  maiden  aunt,  to  the  theatre  some 
four  or  five  times  a  week.  For  this  ceremony, 
or  operation,  Mr.  Cargill  was  wont  to  array 
himself,  according  to  Dorinda's  account,  in  a 
swallow-tail  coat,  a  lavender  satin  tie,  and 
an  embroidered  shirt.  But  beyond  a  vague 
wonder  if  perchance  Cargill  completed  this 
costume  with  shepherd's  plaid  trousers  and 
Roman  sandals,  Mr.  Wykoff  saw  no  hidden 
significance  in  the  parable. 

Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  Randolph,  for  his 
contumacious  and  persistent  abiding  in  dark 
ness,  was  put  under  a  ban  by  all  save  one 
member  of  the  family.  Father  and  Mother 
Leete,  it  is  true,  visited  their  displeasure  upon 
him  only  passively,  and  far,  far  more  in  sor 
row  than  in  anger.  But  Alonzo  and  Dorinda 
declared  him  anathema,  and  would  have  none 
of  him.  I  need  hardly  say  that  their  parents 
knew  nothing  of  this  unwise  severity. 

There  was  a  time  when  Wykoff  was  wel 
comed  at  the  portal  by  Celia's  brother  or  her 


NA  TURAL    SELECTION.  79 

sister,  as  it  might  happen.  (It  was  a  conven 
tion  in  the  family — one  of  the  "  whats  "  which 
are  "what" — that  Celia  might  not  with  pro 
priety  open  the  front  door  to  her  beloved.)  He 
was  allowed  to  meet  her  in  the  hall-way,  and 
they  went  into  the  parlor  to  chat  out  their 
private  chat.  Then  they  joined  the  family 
circle  in  the  dining-room,  where  the  evening 
lamp  shone  cheerily  on  the  red  cloth  that 
turned  the  dining-table  into  a  centre-table, 
and  Randolph  answered  questions  about  his 
mother's  health,  or  talked  of  building  matters 
with  Mr.  Leete,  or  made  engaging  conversa 
tion  on  topics  judiciously  selected  from  the 
news  of  the  day. 

But  that  time  was  long  past  ere  the  winter 
had  travelled  over  the  brow  of  Christmas  Hill. 
Now  it  was  always  Dorinda  who  opened  the 
door  to  him.  He  did  not  know  it,  but  Dorinda, 
on  the  nights  when  he  might  be  looked  for, 
took  her  seat  by  the  dining-room  door,  on  the 
most  uncomfortable  chair  in  the  room,  and 
awaited  his  coming  in  a  gloomy  spirit  of  duty. 
She  always  opened  the  door  with  the  chain  up, 
and  peered  through  the  crack  as  though  she 
were  expecting  a  stranger  of  murderous  inten 
tions.  Then  she  said,  with  the  corners  of  her 
mouth  drawn  down  in  a  painful  smile  :  "  Oh,  I 
beg  your  pardon,  Mr.  Wykoff ;  I  didn't  know 


80  NATURAL    SELECTION7. 

it  was  you,  to-night."  The  door  was  closed, 
the  chain  let  down,  the  door  swung  open  slowly, 
and  Randolph  was  admitted,  to  face  a  greeting 
that  rarely  varied  much  in  form  : 

"I  don't  spose  you  want  to  see  tf\Qfamly, 
Mr.  Wykoff ;  if  you'll  be  so  kind  as  to  step 
into  the  parlor,  I'll  tell  my  sister  you're  here." 

Dorinda  had  reduced  the  difficult  arts  of 
irony  and  sarcasm  to  a  few  simple  formulas  of 
vigorous  emphasis,  applied  to  the  direct  de 
liverances  of  ordinary  conversation.  Yet,  had 
it  not  been  for  a  certain  ring  of  triumphant 
satisfaction  in  her  tone,  and  a  sparkle  of  proud 
achievement  in  her  eye,  Wykoff  would  perhaps 
have  failed  to  suspect  her  intent. 

In  the  front  parlor,  dimly  lit  and  chilly — 
Alonzo  was  in  charge  of  the  furnace — Ran 
dolph  awaited  his  betrothed.  After  what  was 
held  a  proper  and  dignified  space  of  time,  she 
was  permitted  to  join  him.  She  came  in,  often, 
with  a  flush  high  on  her  cheeks  and  with  a 
fluttering  breath,  and  hid  her  head  on  his 
shoulder,  where  he  let  it  lie.  He  was  not  an 
observant  young  man,  he  was  not  a  demon 
strative  wooer,  but  he  felt  that  his  little  girl 
was  suffering  persecution,  and  he  pitied  her. 

He  had  more  than  Dorinda's  depressing  sal 
utation  to  open  his  eyes.  As  he  sat  in  the 
shadowy  parlor,  waiting  for  Celia,  he  heard 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  8 1 

Dorinda  return  to  the  dining-room  to  announce 
his  coming.  Her  entrance  was  followed  by  a 
silence.  Then  came  a  loud  grunt,  from  far 
down  in  Mr.  Leete's  deep  lungs,  as  if  he  said, 
"Oh,  is  that  all?"  Sometimes  a  profound 
sigh  was  audible  through  the  closed  folding- 
doors,  and  he  could  guess  that  there  was  a 
weight  on  Mother  Leete's  mind.  And  regu 
larly,  every  night  that  he  sat  there,  he  heard 
Alonzo  arise,  march  through  the  hall,  put  on 
his  coat  and  hat,  and  go  out  into  the  night. 
And  in  doing  this  simple  thing,  Alonzo  con 
trived,  in  every  step  along  the  hall,  to  put  a 
staccato  accentuation  into  the  setting  down  of 
his  heel  which  could  not  fail  to  carry  its  mean 
ing  to  the  lost  soul  in  the  front  parlor.  It  was 
the  righteous  man  stalking  out  of  the  neigh 
borhood  of  the  accursed  thing. 

But  of  Celia's  sufferings  at  her  relatives' 
hands  Randolph  had  an  exaggerated  concep 
tion.  Alonzo  and  Dorinda  annoyed  her  in  their 
different  ways,  but  she  was  quite  able  to  take 
care  of  herself  in  every  sort  of  family  spat.  She 
was  gentle  of  spirit,  gentle  in  her  tastes  ;  but 
she  had  learned  to  spar  in  many  wordy  contests, 
and  she  was  now  no  longer  dependent  upon 
the  love  or  the  approval  of  either  Alonzo  or  her 
sister.  Indeed,  all  minor  matters,  all  the  little 
things  of  the  house  which  had  been  important 
6 


82  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

to  her  a  few  months  before,  meant  nothing  to 
her  now.  She  was  leading  a  life  of  which  her 
brother,  her  sister,  her  father,  her  mother,  knew 
nothing  ;  she  was  walking  in  paths  where  their 
petty  jealousies,  spites,  disappointments,  and 
misunderstandings  could  not  follow  her. 

There  is,  however,  no  telling  where  combat 
ants  like  Alonzo  and  Dorinda  will  stop  when 
they  once  start  on  a  line  of  aggressive  conduct. 
It  is  not  enough  for  them  to  see  that  their 
weapons  strike  home  ;  to  see  the  punctures,  to 
know,  whatever  momentary  exaltation  of  soul 
may  stay  the  physical  pain  of  the  victim,  that, 
sooner  or  later,  the  wounds  must  begin  to 
bleed,  and  the  tender  flesh  to  burn  with  fever. 
Theirs  is  a  grosser  warfare.  They  must  see 
the  suffering,  they  must  hear  the  cries;  they 
must  realize  that  they  have  inflicted  material 
damage  before  they  can  feel  that  they  have 
done  what  they  set  out  to  do.  Especially  must 
their  vengeance  be  complete  when  it  constitutes 
what  they  consider  merited  punishment — and 
to  judge  and  to  punish  is  the  especial  mission 
of  these  right-thinking  and  right-doing  pepple, 
who,  being  ever  in  the  right,  have  but  small 
pity  for  those  erring  mortals  who  have  not 
their  light. 

So  it  was  not  long  before  Dorinda  laid  down 
the  foil  of  polite  irony,  and  took  to  broad- 


NATURAL   SELECTION.  83 

sword-practice.  She  had  been  content  with 
the  pleasure  to  be  derived  from  outspoken  con 
jectures  as  to  her  sister's  probable  behavior 
after  she  should  have  joined  her  "  swell  friends  " 
— whether  or  no  she  would  recognize  her  kins 
folk  when  she  met  them  on  the  street — or  look 
at  any  one  who  lived  in  a  frame  house — or  use 
baking-powder  in  her  kitchen.  But  now  she 
relieved  her  mind  with  open  and  vituperative 
onslaughts  upon  Randolph  Wykoff,  his  mother, 
and  all  that  they  stood  for  and  represented  in 
the  social  scheme.  She  gave  up  going  to  the 
door  to  let  Randolph  in,  and  that  duty  was 
delegated  to  Alonzo,  who  performed  it  in  abso 
lute  silence,  with  a  discourteous  hostility  in  his 
bearing  that,  had  he  not  been  Celia  Leete's 
brother,  would  have  got  him  a  sound  thrashing 
at  the  hands  of  a  young  gentleman  who  had 
been  held,  in  his  time,  one  of  the  prettiest  mid 
dle-weight  boxers  that  had  ever  sparred  at  Har 
vard  College. 

It  was  a  most  unpleasant  state  of  things  for 
the  engaged  pair,  and  they  talked  it  over  at 
every  meeting.  Wykoff  was  for  going  to  Mr. 
Leete  and  demanding  an  abatement  of  the 
nuisance ;  but  Celia,  who  underestimated  the 
strength  of  her  position,  told  him  that  parental 
interference  would  only  embitter  her  perse 
cutors,  and  make  her  lot  the  harder  ;  and  her 


84  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

lover  unwillingly  held  his  peace.  It  was  Do 
rinda  who  brought  matters  to  a  climax. 

Mrs.  Wykoff  had  been  ill.  Her  lungs  were 
not  over-strong,  and  she  had  been  taken  with 
something  that  looked  like  pneumonia.  Ran 
dolph  stopped  at  the  Leetes,  late  one  January 
afternoon,  to  tell  Celia  of  his  mother's  progress 
toward  recovery.  He  was  admitted  by  the 
servant — a  rare  event ;  for  attendance  upon 
the  front  door  was  not  among  that  handmaid's 
many  duties.  She  let  him  into  the  parlor,  and 
there  he  found  Dorinda,  volubly  entertaining  a 
young  man  and  a  young  woman  whom  he  at 
once  guessed  to  be  the  much-vaunted  Cargill 
and  his  bride-elect.  Cargill  was  a  tall  young 
man  with  a  large  black  moustache.  His  cloth 
ing  had  that  effect  of  shiny  and  unwrinkled 
newness  which  is  rarely  to  be  observed  save  on 
the  wire  frames  in  the  tailors'  windows.  Huge 
diamonds  sparkled  on  his  fingers,  in  his  neck 
tie,  and  even  in  a  shamelessly  exposed  collar- 
stud.  Mrs.  Cargill,  that  was  to  be,  was  clad 
in  a  blue  velvet  dress  that  just  held  its  own 
for  brilliancy  against  Dorinda's  red  bodice  of 
state. 

The  Cargill  and  the  Cargill-expectant  glanced 
at  the  Wykoff  as  he  entered  and  sat  down  in 
the  farthest  corner  of  the  room.  Dorinda  did 
not  even  turn  her  head,  but  pitched  the  con- 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  85 

versation  in  a  higher  key,  so  that  he  might 
lose  no  word  of  it. 

"  Was  you  at  the  Sweatmans'  sociable  ? " 
she  inquired. 

"  Nope,"  said  Mr.  Cargill,  sucking  the  big 
silver  head  of  his  cane. 

"  I  heard  it  was  real  el'gant,"  Miss  Leete  ran 
on  ;  "I  couldn't  go — ma  'n'  me  had  to  go  to  a 
meetin'  of  the  church  fair  c'mittee.  I  s'pose 
you  know  I'm  goin'  to  have  the  Rebekah  booth 
at  the  fair.  Hope  you're  comin'  to  patronize 
me.  I'll  sell  you  some  lem'nade — 'f  you  ever 
drink  lem'nade,  Mr.  Cargill." 

The  simper  with  which  this  speech  was  ended 
was  a  beautiful  tribute  to  Cargill  in  his  quality 
of  man  of  the  world. 

"  Ain't  sellin'  beer  this  trip  ?  "  was  Mr.  Car- 
gill's  jocular  inquiry.  "  Then  I  guess  I'll  take 
lem'nade.  Sell  a  stick  with  it  ?  " 

"  Oh,  do  hush,"  said  the  bride-elect,  dab 
bing  at  him  with  her  muff,  and  pretending  to 
be  scandalized  at  his  wickedness.  "  /  think 
lem'nade's  reel  nice,  don't  you,  D'rinda?  I'm 
comin'  to  get  some,  'n'  I'm  goin'  to  make  him 
pay  for  it,  too." 

Two  treble  laughs  and  a  bass  laugh  did 
honor  to  this  witticism,  and,  when  the  spasm 
of  merriment  was  over,  Dorinda  began  again. 

"  D'  you  see  Mr.  Cree  at  the  Sweatmans'  ?    / 


86  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

think  he's  one  'f  the  nicest  gentlemen  I  ever 
saw." 

Celia  was  out ;  it  was  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
before  she  came  in,  and  through  that  quarter 
of  an  hour  Randolph  Wykoff  sat  in  his  corner 
of  the  parlor  and  heard  the  chronicle  of  a  soci 
ety  that  in  one  way  might  well  be  called,  as  it 
would  have  called  itself,  "  el'gant." 

This  was  bad  enough,  but  there  was  worse 
yet.  The  visitors  took  their  leave  at  last,  and 
Dorinda  followed  them  into  the  hallway.  She 
closed  the  door  behind  her,  but  one  door  was 
a  poor  obstruction  to  Dorinda's  voice,  and 
Wykoff  heard  what  probably  it  was  intended 
that  he  should  hear: 

"Him?  Oh,  that's  Mr.  Wykoff  —  Celia's 
friend,  you  know — he  ain't  any  'f  mine.  I'd 
have  introduced  you,  on'y  I  don't  hardly  know 
him  well  enough.  We  ain't  fine  enough  for 
him,  'n'  I  thought  maybe  our  friends  wasn't. 
Guess  you  ain't  lost  much,  though." 

When  Celia  came  in  Randolph  told  her,  as 
gently  as  possible,  but  definitely  and  defini 
tively,  that  thereafter  he  would  come  to  the 
house  only  when  her  sister  was  not  at  home, 
and  he  kept  his  word. 

Yet  they  had  to  see  each  other,  and  so  they 
fell  into  a  bad  way  of  meeting  in  the  streets. 
Celia  contrived  to  let  her  lover  know  that  on 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  8/ 

such  a  day  a  shopping  tour  would  bring  her 
through  such  and  such  a  street  at  this  or  that 
hour;  and  at  the  time  and  place  appointed, 
Randolph  would  meet  her  to  walk -home  with 
her.  This  unwise  arrangement  brought  itself 
to  a  timely  end,  happily  for  both  of  them. 
Celia's  sources  of  supply  were  among  the  marts 
of  fashion  that  line  West  Fourteenth  Street 
and  the  region  round  about.  Thence  she  could 
find  no  route  homeward  on  which  a  young  man 
like  Randolph  Wykoff  could  have  the  ghost  of 
an  excuse  for  loitering.  He  therefore  sug 
gested  to  her  to  make  her  purchases  at  the 
larger  shops  on  Broadway,  so  that  he  might 
join  her  in  the  quiet  side-streets  to  the  east  of 
the  great  thoroughfare.  Those  streets  between 
Union  and  Madison  Squares  are,  for  the  most 
part,  given  over  to  boarding-houses  and  lodg 
ing-houses  of  dull  respectability,  and  although 
they  are  not  much  traversed,  they  lie  in  lines 
that  any  one  might  follow  who  would  pass  from 
Murray  Hill  to — say,  for  a  fine  old-fashioned 
quarter,  Stuyvesant  Square.  And  as  the  Wy- 
koffs  lived  near  Stuyvesant  Square,  Randolph 
might  well  take  any  one  of  them  on  his  way 
home,  without  drawing  undesired  attention  to 
the  fact  of  his  meeting  a  young  lady,  and  turn 
ing  on  his  track  to  walk  a  few  blocks  with  her. 
But  the  Broadway  tradesmen  have  not  the 


88  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

Fourteenth  Street  idea  of  "bargains;"  and  it 
soon  became  known  in  the  Leete  household, 
where  nothing  was  done  in  privacy,  that  Celia 
was  buying  embroidery  silk,  and  gros-grain 
ribbons,  and  cotton  lace,  and  ruchings,  and  the 
like,  at  prices  that  were  simply  scandalous  to 
the  apprehensions  of  Fourteenth  Street  shop 
pers.  Dorinda  drew  her  own  conclusions, 
which  were  quite  correct;  she  communicated 
them  to  her  mother ;  her  mother  brought  the 
case  before  Mr.  Leete,  and  he,  summoning  Celia 
to  his  presence,  heard  the  whole  story.  Up  to 
that  point  Celia  had  suffered  in  silence,  obey 
ing  that  unnumbered  commandment  which 
the  experience  of  childhood  has  added  to 
the  Decalogue  :  Thou  Shalt  Not  Tell  Tales. 
Now,  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  uncover 
the  history  of  her  ill-treatment  and  her  lover's 
at  the  hands  of  Alonzo  and  Dorinda.  Popper 
Leete  heard ;  he  constituted  himself  a  dic 
tatorial  court  of  inquiry  and  judgment,  and 
when  the  culprits  had  made  their  inadequate 
defence,  he  laid  down  the  law. 

"  I  want  this  nonsense  stopped  right  here," 
he  said,  sternly  ;  "when  your  ma  'n'  me  wanter 
break  off  that  match  we'll  do  it,  an'  when  we 
want  any  help  from  either  of  you  we'll  let  you 
know.  What  your  ma  an'  me  think  of  him  is 
none  of  your  business, you  understand!  When 


NA  TURAL    SELECTION.  89 

he  comes  here  you  want  to  treat  him  decent 
and  civil.  I'm  ashamed  of  you,  that  a  gen 
tleman  should  come  into  my  house,  and  be 
treated  so  by  you  two  young  whippersnappers 
that  he  can't  come  to  see  your  sister  like  she 
was  a  lady.  Don't  let  me  hear  of  this  non 
sense  no  more  ;  you  hear  me — NO  more  !  An' 
quit  a-naggin'  of  your  sister  !  " 

Mr.  Leete's  judgment,  once  put  forth, 
allowed  no  disobedience,  either  in  letter  or  in 
spirit,  and  as  he  took  pains  in  his  own  person 
to  show  a  proper  and  dignified  courtesy  toward 
Mr.  Wykoff,  it  was  not  long  before  Celia  and 
her  betrothed  were  enjoying  to  the  full  such 
comfort  as  there  may  be  in  a  forced  peace. 
But  it  was  not  a  pleasant  air  to  breathe,  and 
though  the  occasion  of  their  parting  was  sad 
in  itself,  they  both  felt  more  relief  than  either 
would  have  cared  to  own  when  Randolph  was 
summoned  to  Florida,  where  his  mother  lay 
ill.  She  had  gone  South  to  regain  strength, 
after  her  illness  of  January,  only  to  catch  cold 
again  in  six  weeks.  She  was  nursed  by  the 
two  Curtis  girls,  the  daughters  of  her  favorite 
cousin,  and  she  was  well  nursed  ;  but  her 
relapse  proved  a  serious  matter,  and  Randolph 
was  sent  for.  He  set  out  at  once,  and  stayed 
with  his  mother  until  the  worst  was  over,  and 
while  she  regained  her  strength.  It  was  in. 


go  NATURAL  SELECTION. 

the  last  of  May  that  he  brought  her  home  to 
the  old  Wykoff  house  near  East  Hampton. 
During  this  time  he  and  Celia  corresponded 
with  regularity.  It  was  a  most  satisfying  cor 
respondence,  at  the  bottom,  as  our  French 
friends  say  ;  but  when  Randolph  tied  up  the 
little  package  of  letters  and  tucked  it  away  in 
the  safest  corner  of  the  trunk  that  he  was 
packing  for  the  homeward  journey,  he  thought 
that  perhaps  it  would  be  a  good  thing  to  sug 
gest  to  Celia  that  he  would  be  greatly  pleased 
if  she  cared  to  read  one  or  two  books  that  he 
had  found  serviceable  in  his  own  studies. 
****** 

One  little  incident  that  took  place  just 
before  Mrs.  Wykoff  went  to  Florida  made  a 
deep  impression  upon  Mr.  Leete,  and  set  him 
to  thinking  uneasily  of  the  future.  His  wife 
drew  his  attention  to  the  fact  that,  Mrs. 
Wykoff  having  passed  through  a  serious  ill 
ness,  a  call  of  congratulation  from  the  head 
of  the  house  of  Leete  would  be  an  appro 
priate  and  delicate  attention  to  the  convales 
cent.  Perhaps,  the  good  wife  suggested,  the 
Leete  family  had  been  remiss  in  such  matters 
of  courtesy.  Mrs.  Wykoff's  visit  was  still 
unreturned,  and,  as  Mrs.  Leete  truly  said,  it 
was  only  because  Popper  Leete  had  kept  say 
ing  that  he  would  go  with  her  some  day,  and 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  91 

had  never  yet  found  the  day  to  suit  him. 
Now,  they  didn't  both  of  them  want  to  go 
streakin'  down  there  together,  when  Mrs.  Wy- 
koff  was  sick,  or  sort  of  sick ;  and  she  her 
self  couldn't  go,  with  the  church  fair  to  look 
after ;  but  Popper  Leete  could  just  as  well  as 
not,  and  it  would  look  as  if  they  meant  to  do 
the  right  thing;  and  if  he'd  go  now,  he'd  never 
have  to  go  again,  and  he  might  just  as  well  go, 
and  have  done  with  it. 

Mr.  Leete  went.  Dressed  in  his  Sunday 
broadcloth,  he  presented  himself  at  the  door 
of  the  Wykoffs'  great  house  on  Second  Ave 
nue,  and  gave  the  liveried  menial  his  one 
card,  neatly  written  in  Dorinda's  elaborate 
"  Anserian  System  "  handwriting. 

Mrs.  Wykoff  was  lying  on  the  lounge  in 
her  sunny  sitting-room,  which  looked  out  on 
a  little  snow-covered  corner  of  the  garden, 
where  a  half-clad  Venus  snatched  at  her 
scanty  raiment,  and  looked  as  though  she 
would  like  to  be  able  to  shudder,  and  shake 
the  snow  off  her  bare  shoulders. 

Mr.  Leete  had  a  pleasant  call.  He  soon 
found  himself  talking  readily  with  the  gentle, 
gracious  lady  on  the  lounge,  and  he  was  so 
much  at  his  ease  that  he  was  even  able  to 
cast  furtive  glances  at  the  room  and  its  furni 
ture — rich,  yet  simple  and  old  enough  in  fash- 


Q2  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

ion  to  come  within  the  scope  of  his  knowledge. 
He  was  so  much  at  ease,  indeed,  that  when 
Mrs.  Wykoff's  tea  was  brought  in  he  accepted 
her  offer  of  a  cup,  and  becoming  interested 
in  the  conversation,  dropped  the  cup  on  the 
floor  and  broke  it  into  many  fragments. 

He  was  deeply  distressed.  It  took  all  Mrs. 
Wykoff's  tact  and  discretion  to  make  him  feel 
that  she  saw  no  uncommon  awkwardness  in 
his  mishap. 

"  They  are  absurd  things,  those  little  egg 
shell  cups,"  she  said  ;  "  they  are  forever  break 
ing.  Randolph  brought  me  that  set  only  three 
months  ago,  and  I  think  that  he  and  I  between 
us  have  contrived  to  break  half  a  dozen  cups 
since  then.  Don't  give  it  another  thought, 
please." 

Mr.  Leete  did  give  it  another  thought,  how 
ever.  He  gave  it  thought  enough  to  privily 
examine  the  mark  on  the  bottom  of  the  broken 
cup.  It  bore  a  French  name,  strange  to  him  ; 
but  he  succeeded  in  getting  some  sort  of  men 
tal  picture  of  the  combined  characters.  In  his 
own  phrase,  he  sized  it  up  roughly.  When, 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  later,  he  found  himself  in 
the  street,  with  no  clear  idea  of  the  means  by 
which  his  visit  had  been  brought  to  a  painless 
close  and  an  easy  exit,  he  was  already  nursing 
the  germ  of  a  great  idea. 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  93 

Why  should  not  a  Leete,  as  well  as  a  Wykoff, 
replace  a  broken  set  of  chinaware?  Mrs. 
Wykoff  had  said  that  six  cups  were  already 
gone — Mr.  Leete's  cup  made  the  seventh. 
Here  was  a  chance  to  perform  an  act  of  sub 
stantial  courtesy,  and  with  credit  to  the  family. 
"I  guess  I'll  do  a  little  suthin'  in  the  crockery 
line  myself,"  thought  Mr.  Leete. 

He  remembered  that  Randolph's  gift  of 
china  had  come  from  a  well-known  shop  on 
Broadway,  and  thither  he  went  at  once.  A 
polite  little  salesman  met  him  near  the  door  of 
the  long  wareroom,  and  inquired  his  pleasure. 
Mr.  Leete  was  conscious  of  feeling  large,  pon 
derous,  and  solid  amid  all  the  fragility. 
Faience  and  Limoges  were  in  front  of  him, 
Sevres  and  Belleek  to  right  and  left,  and  his 
eyes  rested  on  nothing  simpler  or  more  modest 
than  that  sturdy  Meissen  ware  which  is  still 
honored  under  the  name  of  Dresden. 

"  I  want  some  tea-things,"  began  Mr.  Leete, 
"  of  the  kind  you  call — "  the  French  word 
failed  him,  but  his  eye  lit  on  the  thing  itself,  a 
set  of  the  identical  pattern,  different  only  in 
color,  lying  in  state  among  the  satin  folds  of  a 
huge  leather  case. 

"  There — them  !  "  he  said  ;  "  that's  what  I'm 
lookin'  for,  only  I  want  it  in  blue." 

"  We  haven't  a  blue  set,  sir,"  said  the  clerk; 


94  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

"we  had  one,  but  we  sold  it  a  few  months 
ago." 

"  D'ye  know  who  you  sold  it  to  ?"  queried 
Mr.  Leete,  hiding  his  detective  intent  under  a 
•mask  of  simplicity.  "  Maybe  the  party  would 
be  willin'  to  sell." 

The  clerk  smiled  superciliously. 

"  I  hardly  think  so,"  he  said  ;  "  our  trade  is 
pretty  much  with  private  customers." 

"  I'd  like  to  have  you  make  sure,"  persisted 
Mr.  Leete ;  "I  want  blue,  an'  I'm  willin'  to 
pay  for  it." 

The  salesman  trotted  to  the  back  of  the 
shop,  and  spoke  to  a  clerk  at  a  desk.  The 
clerk  fluttered  the  leaves  of  a  great  book,  and 
the  salesman  trotted  back,  with  a  superior 
smile  on  his  lips. 

"  I  don't  think  you'll  be  very  successful,  sir," 
he  said  ;  "  that  other  set  was  bought  by  Mr. 
Wykoff,  son  of  old  John  Wykoff,  who  died 
last  year.  You  may  have  heard  of  him. 
They're  one  of  the  oldest  families  in  the  city, 
and  one  of  the  richest.  I  don't  believe 
they'd  be  willing  to  dispose  of  anything  they 
bought." 

"  I've  heard  of  'em,"  said  Mr.  Leete,  smiling 
in  his  turn.  He  wanted  to  see  that  salesman's 
face  when  he  told  him  to  box  up  the  pink  set 
and  send  it  to  Mrs.  John  Wykoff,  Second  Ave- 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  95 

nue.  After  all,  the  pink  would  do  as  well  as 
the  blue. 

"What's  the  price  of  this  set  here?"  he 
asked,  touching  one  of  the  egg-shell  cups  with 
a  careful  finger. 

"  Four  hundred  and  twenty  dollars,"  said  the 
salesman. 

"  Eh?"  said  Mr.  Leete. 

"  Very  cheap  at  that,  sir — marked  down  from 
four  hundred  and  seventy-five.  All  hand- 
painted  by  one  of  the  first  artists  in  France. 
Only  these  two  sets  ever  imported — quite 
unique." 

"  Hum  !"  snorted  Mr.  Leete,  "  too  bad  you 
ain't  got  the  blue.  Good-day." 

Out  in  the  street  he  made  a  rapid  calcula 
tion. 

"  Four  hundred  'n'  twenty — cup  'n'  saucer's 
one  piece,  I  s'pose ;  one  ain't  good  for  much 
'thout  t'other — twelve — teapot,  jug,  an'  sugar's 
fifteen — wa'n't  no  slop-bowl — fifteen  into  four 
hundred  'n'  twenty — twenty -eight  dollars. 
Moses  Taylor !  " 

This  is  the  New  Yorker's  special  oath  of 
astonishment ;  though  why  that  eminent  and 
sober-minded  merchant  has  received  such 
strange  canonization  in  the  calendar  of  mild 
profanity  no  one  may  know.  When  he  was  at 
home  he  told  his  wife  all  about  it,  and  shook 


96  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

his  head  dubiously  as  he  drew  some  uncom 
fortable  conclusions. 

"  I  don't  see,"  he  said,  "  that  we've  got  any 
occasion  to  travel  with  folks  that  c'n  smash 
twenty-eight  dollars'  wuth  'f  crockery  an'  not 
so  much  as  know  it.  That  ain't  any  sort  of 
housekeeping  for  Celia.  She  ain't  been  brought 
up  in  that  way,  an'  I  don't  want  her  to  get 
sech  ideas.  Twenty-eight  dollars  !  Why,  Ma 
Leete,  I'd  ruther  have  her  eat  off  stone  china 
all  the  days  'f  her  life — an'  so  would  you." 
******* 

And  yet  Mr.  Leete  was  as  much  pleased  as 
was  his  wife  when,  in  July,  a  letter  came  from 
Mrs.  Wykoff,  at  East  Hampton,  inviting  Celia 
to  spend  a  few  weeks  at  the  Wykoff  home 
stead. 

"You  will  have  a  dull  time,"  she  wrote,  "for 
I  am  still  something  of  an  invalid,  and,  of 
course,  we  see  no  one;  but  my  nieces — I  call 
them  so — are  spending  the  summer  with  me, 
and  they  and  Randolph  will  do  what  they  can 
to  make  it  pleasant  for  you.  Write  me  that 
you  will  come,  and  Parker,  my  faithful  facto 
tum,  will  call  for  you  and  make  you  comfort 
able  on  your  journey." 

Even  Alonzo  felt  some  tender  stirrings 
toward  mercy  in  the  depths  of  his  stern  soul ; 
and  Dorinda  gave  it  as  her  opinion  that  Celia 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  97 

could  adequately  display  her  self-respect  and 
sense  of  independence  by  delaying  her  answer 
for  the  space  of  twenty-four  hours. 

As  it  took  poor  Celia  that  time  to  prepare  a 
missive  sufficiently  lofty  in  tone  to  pass  the 
family  conclave,  Dorinda  had  her  own  way, 
and,  being  placated,  entered  with  an  interest 
only  too  active  and  energetic  into  the  prepara 
tion  of  her  sister's  paraphernalia. 


PART  III. 

DORINDA  threw  herself  upon  the  task  of 
preparing  Celia  for  the  fray  with  a  zeal 
and  ardor  that  brought  only  dismay  to  her 
younger  sister's  breast.  It  having  been  de 
cided  that  the  victim  of  society  must  have 
some  new  gowns,  Dorinda  at  once  planned  a 
wardrobe  of  variegated  brilliancy.  Celia  strove 
with  all  her  tact  for  a  more  modest  working, 
but  she  had  to  stand  up  and  do  battle-royal 
for  her  own  standards  when  Dorinda  wanted 
her  to  purchase  a  certain  "  Dame  Trot  "  gar 
ment,  of  a  pattern  which  was  at  the  time  excit 
ing  the  irreverent  attention  of  the  press.  They 
came  to  an  open  rupture.  Celia  finally  ap- 


9?  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

pealed  to  the  head  of  the  house,  who  decided, 
with  masculine  justice,  that  she  was  entitled 
to  choose  her  clothes  for  herself.  Dorinda 
writhed ;  but  came  back  to  the  fascinating 
employment  more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger. 

When  the  little  trunk  was  at  last  packed, 
Dorinda's  verdict  on  the  contents  was  that 
they  were  good  enough,  but  had  no  sort  of 
style  about  them.  Celia,  doubtful  of  their 
possessing  any  merits  at  all,  took  a  negative 
comfort  from  this.  Ah !  if  she  could  only 
gather  an  idea  of  Mrs.  Wykoff's  likes  from 
Dorinda's  dislikes ! 

The  day  came  when  Mrs.  Wykoff's  maid  was 
to  convey  her  charge  to  the  further  shore  of 
Long  Island.  This  relegation  of  Celia  to  a 
menial's  care  had  somewhat  troubled  the  family 
conclave  ;  but  it  had  been  decided  that,  in  view 
of  the  differences  in  social  ethics  revealed  by 
past  dealings  with  the  Wykoff  family,  it  would 
be  fair  to  assume  that  the  lady's  intent  was 
respectful,  however  much  her  course  was  open 
to  the  criticism  of  the  right-minded.  The  sun 
was  shining  on  the  mid-day  dinner  when  the 
carriage  was  announced ;  Celia  had  finished  a 
nervous  attempt  at  a  meal,  and  was  ready  for 
the  ordeal.  Five  napkins  fell  to  the  ground, 
and  amid  a  storm  of  caresses  and  tears  Celia 
was  hustled  to  the  door.  Even  Alonzo  shook 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  99 

her  hand  with  a  stern  cordiality  which  hinted 
that,  under  favorable  circumstances,  all  might 
yet  be  forgiven.  Her  father  kissed  her  brow, 
and  in  a  minute  she  was  in  the  carriage — the 
Wykoff  carriage — with  Parker. 

Parker  was  a  Briton,  and  she  stood  by  her 
colors.  Long  years  before,  when  her  firm  but 
kindly  rule  over  Mrs.  Wykoff  was  just  begin 
ning,  her  employer  made  one  single  effort  to 
treat  her  as  an  American. 

"Your  name  is  Jane,  I  believe?"  she  said: 
"  I  will  call  you  Jane,  I  think,  hereafter,  instead 
of  Parker." 

Jane  Parker  dropped  an  old-world  courtesy, 
and  set  her  thin  lips. 

"  Indeed,  mum,  I  would  not  be  that  disre 
spectful  to  my  betters;  and  I  'ope,  mum,  you 
will  not  insist."  Mrs.  Wykoff  did  not  insist, 
and  Parker  remained  Parker. 

The  carriage  rolled  away,  and  Celia  leaned 
back  in  her  corner  and  felt  a  delicious  glow  of 
yearning  fright  and  mysterious  hope.  Oppo 
site  her  sat  Parker,  bolt  upright,  an  eminently 
respectable  guide  to  the  gates  of  Elysium. 
Beyond  her,  through  the  windows,  Celia  saw  the 
silver  W  tossing  on  the  rounded  flanks  of  the 
Wykoff  horses.  At  the  railroad  station — or 
the  corral  called  by  that  name — Stephen  met 
them,  Mrs.  Wykoff's  aged  but  efficient  butler 


100  NATURAL    SELECTION, 

and  general  manager — the  masculine  equiva 
lent  of  Parker.  Here  they  were  taken  under 
the  wing  of  that  vigilance  of  which  an  accom 
plished  servitor  like  Stephen  makes  a  pride. 
Celia  did  nothing  for  herself,  she  was  not  even 
sure  that  she  had  used  her  own  means  of  loco 
motion  when  she  found  herself  seated  in  the 
best  seat  in  the  car,  Parker  close  behind  her, 
her  light  wrap  and  little  satchel  on  the  seat  by 
her  side,  and  a  monthly  magazine  on  her  lap. 

She  had  not  thought  of  taking  a  book  with 
her,  and  she  did  not  even  know  that  for  this  del 
icate  attention  she  was  indebted  to  Stephen's 
own  inspiration.  Later  she  learned  of  the  con 
scientious  care  he  had  given  to  the  selection. 
He  felt  it  his  duty  to  report  his  exercise  of  dis 
cretion  to  Mrs.  Wykoff. 

"  Seeing  her  unprovided,  ma'am,"  he  ex 
plained,  "  I  felt  that  I  might  go  so  far.  I 
would  not  take  the  responsibility  of  choosing 
what  a  young  lady  should  read,  but  I  had  seen 
that  particular  paper  here  on  your  own  table, 
ma'am,  and  I  run  through  it  on  the  news-stand 
to  see  that  there  was  no  nudity  pictures  nor 
anything  that  you  could  object  to,  ma'am." 

Celia  hardly  glanced  at  her  magazine.  She 
was  too  full  of  a  new  and  sweet  content  to  care 
to  read  any  other  woman's  love-story.  She 
looked  out  of  the  window,  and  was  interested 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  IOI 

in  the  landscape.  Perhaps  no  one  else  ever 
cared  to  look  at  that  dull,  flat  country,  divided 
between  swampiness  and  aridity ;  but*  Celia 
gazed  at  it  with  an  indulgence  that  had  in  it 
a  touch  of  proprietorship.  Most  of  the  time, 
however,  it  pleased  her  to  lean  back  in  her 
seat  and  sense  the  guardianship  of  her  lover's 
emissaries.  It  was  as  though  the  aegis  of  her 
Prince  of  the  Golden  World  was  stretched  out 
over  her.  She  had  discovered  Stephen  sitting 
unobtrusively  at  the  furthest  end  of  the  car, 
watching  her  with  a  steady  eye  that  took  in  all 
her  surroundings,  her  every  movement.  She 
half  lifted  her  hand  toward  the  window — he 
was  at  her  side  in  an  instant,  and  had  raised 
the  sash.  She  drew  back  a  little  from  the 
draught — Parker  silently  slipped  her  wrap  over 
her  shoulders.  At  one  of  the  stations  a  tall, 
handsome  young  man  entered  and  wandered 
down  the  aisle,  looking  for  a  seat.  His  eye 
fell  on  the  empty  place  next  to  hers ;  then, 
as  if  lured  by  some  strange  magnetism,  that 
youthful  masculine  eye  was  attracted  to  Ste 
phen's,  sitting  weazened  and  bent  in  the  far 
corner  of  the  car,  and  the  young  man  passed 
on  his  way.  Celia  felt  sure  that  if  he  had  hesi 
tated  in  the  least,  he  would  have  been  snatched 
up  and  wafted  iato  the  most  distant  car  on  the 
train.  Surely  such  service  was  sweet. 


IO2  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

It  was  dusk  when  they  arrived  at  the  station 
nearest  to  the  Wykoffs'  place — a  summery 
dusk,  yet  chill  and  damp.  Randolph  was  wait 
ing,  with  his  mother's  victoria.  He  did  not 
kiss  her ;  he  only  pressed  her  hand  and  mur 
mured  "  Dearest !  "  in  stately  confidence. 
There  were  people  all  about  them ;  it  could 
not  be  otherwise,  and  Celia  knew  it :  yet  some 
how  she  felt  a  little  disappointed — a  trifle 
chilled. 

The  carriage  went  swiftly  over  the  sandy 
roads,  while  Randolph  talked  to  his  betrothed 
in  low,  deep  tones — talked  of  such  things  only 
as  Parker,  sitting  on  the  box,  might  hear. 
They  passed  under  dim  trees,  and  through 
pigmy  forests  of  underbrush,  the  cool  gloom 
growing  deeper  and  deeper.  Celia  listened 
almost  in  silence.  An  indefinable  loneliness 
and  a  joyous,  fluttering  expectancy  struggled 
within  her.  She  was  trying  to  adjust  her  con 
sciousness  to  a  sudden  change  in  her  surround 
ings.  She  felt  she  was  more  than  the  length 
of  the  longest  railroad  from  Chelsea  Village 
and  Popper  Leete's  mid-day  dinner. 

"  We  didn't  expect  to  have  any  one  at  the 
house  except  my  cousins,"  she  heard  Randolph 
saying  as  her  mind  tried  to  picture  the  life  that 
already  seemed  to  have  slipped  far  behind  her; 
"  but  I've  got  an  old  college  chum  of  mine 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  1 03 

down  here  for  a  month  or  two — Jack  Claggett. 
He's  an  artist,  and  he  is  doing  some  of  the 
decorative  work  on  the  Cooperative  Buildings. 
That  is  only  one  end  of  his  cleverness.  Clag 
gett  is  going  to  be  a  great  man  some  day.  And 
then,  just  for  to-night,  we  have  old  Jedby  at 
dinner.  He  invited  himself — he  lives  with  his 
brother  six  or  seven  miles  down  the  road — 
near  Sag  Harbor.  He's  a  jolly  old  gossip,  and 
used  to  be  a  friend  of  my  father's.  He's  a  sort 
of  tame  cat  with  us.  But  you'll  see  nobody 
else  except  my  mother  and  the  girls." 

"  The  girls  ?  "  queried  Celia. 

"  Yes,  my  cousins.  And  you've  got  to  fall 
in  love  with  them,  you  know.  They're  dear 
good  girls.  I've  known  them  ever  since  they 
were  little  mites.  We  used  to  play  together. 
Laura  is  uncommonly  clever,  and  no  end  of 
fun.  She's  the  eldest.  Annette  is  the  pretty 
one ;  but  she  isn't  as  bright  as  Laura.  But 
mind,  you  must  admire  them  both." 

"  I  will  if  they  will  let  me,"  said  Celia 
meekly. 

"  Let  you  !  "  exclaimed  her  lover  ;  "  they 
will  worship  you — see  if  they  don't !  "  And 
then,  catching  sight  of  Parker's  back,  he  became 
silent. 

They  swung  through  a  gateway  in  a  long 
stone  wall,  and  the  wheels  crashed  up  a  gravelled 


104  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

drive.  Red  windows  flashed  out  through  the 
trees,  a  flood  of  warm  light  came  from  a  broad 
open  door,  and  presently  Celia  was  standing  on 
the  veranda,  receiving  a  motherly  kiss  from 
Mrs.  Wykoff,  and  furtively  examining  two  tall, 
pretty,  and  very  talkative  girls  who  had  a  num 
ber  of  unimportant  things  to  say  with  bird-like 
volubility. 

"  Parker  will  take  you  to  your  room,  my 
dear,"  said  Mrs.  Wykoff  ;  "  and  she  will  help 
you  to  change  your  dress,  or  you  shall  come  to 
dinner  just  as  you  are,  whichever  pleases  you. 
Are  you  tired  ?  You  are  a  little  pale." 

"  I — I  have  a  headache,  I  think,"  faltered 
Celia,  truly  enough,  for  the  strong,  sharp  sea- 
air  had  struck  hard  on  her  nerves. 

"  You  shall  have  your  dinner  in  your  own 
room,"  declared  Mrs.  Wykoff;  but  Celia  would 
not  consent.  It  was  only  the  ghost  of  a  head 
ache,  and  it  would  go  away  itself. 

She  found  it  very  awkward  to  be  helped  by 
Parker,  and  when  Parker  opened  her  trunk  and 
took  out  the  contents  she  watched  Parker's  eye 
with  uneasiness  in  her  soul.  She  might  as  well 
have  tried  to  read  the  eye  of  the  sphinx. 

"  Which  dress,  mum  ?  "  inquired  her  assist 
ant. 

"The  gray  one,  I  think,"  said  Celia,  naming 
the  garment  on  which  she  placed  her  main 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  1 05 

reliance,  as  being  what  women  call  "always 
nice."  It  was  a  dark  gray  silk,  so  made  as  to 
fall,  to  Celia's  apprehension,  just  about  at  the 
vanishing  point  or  horizon-line  between  the 
heaven  of  full  dress  and  the  lowly  simplicity  of 
work-a-day  attire — a  compromise  gown,  in  fact. 
And  truly,  the  modest  square-cut  corsage  with 
pretty  lace  (the  first  real  lace  Celia  had  ever 
bought)  at  the  neck  was  as  proper  garb  as  you 
shall  see  a  pretty  maid  in. 

But  when  Celia  saw  that  gray  dress  come  out 
of  the  trunk,  the  kindly  current  of  her  blood 
flew  back  to  her  heart's  chill  core.  Down  the 
front  in  an  arabesque  pattern,  over  the  back  in 
simulation  of  impossible  festoons,  nay,  down 
the  skirt  in  a  mad  cascade  of  color  ran  a  ribbon 
of  two  shades  of  arsenical  green,  occasionally 
exhibiting  a  reverse  side  of  pale  yellow.  Do- 
rinda  had  done  good  by  stealth,  and  had  vio 
lated  the  sanctity  of  the  trunk  after  it  had  been 
packed.  Dorinda  had  always  said  that  that 
dress  lacked  style. 

"  No,  not  that  one,"  Celia  said  to  the  im 
movable  Parker :  "  that  is  a — a  mistake. 
There's  a  black  silk  dress  there — I'll  get  it." 

Celia  blessed  her  mother's  peculiar  fancy, 
that  was  responsible  for  the  existence  of  the 
black  silk  dress.  "  Mrs.  Wykoff  bein'  in 
mournin',"  Mrs.  Leete  had  speculated,  "  she 


106  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

might  like  to  see  you  in  black  of  a  Sunday.  It 
looks  more  considerate." 

Ten  minutes  after  the  appearance  of  the 
black  silk,  Celia  had  begun  to  live  her  dream : 
she  sat  at  her  lover's  table  ;  whatever  this  life 
might  be  for  which  she  had  yearned,  she  was 
in  the  midst  of  it.  She  had  wished  a  wish,  and 
the  wish  had  come  true,  as  in  a  fairy  tale. 

A  dream  she  thought  it  at  first.  She  sank 
into  her  great  leather  chair  with  a  pleasant 
sense  of  physical  fatigue.  She  saw  everything 
in  the  rosy  dazzle  of  the  crimson-shaded 
candles.  She  had  a  vague,  diffused  perception 
of  luxurious  comfort.  The  table  spread  before 
her,  a  glittering,  snowy  plain.  She  heard  the 
murmur  of  gentle  voices  all  about  her ;  even 
the  soft  laughter  was  musical  to  her  ears. 

It  was  only  a  moment  of  dreamy  ecstasy. 
She  lifted  a  spoonful  of  soup  to  her  lips,  and 
awoke  herself  to  observe,  to  study,  to  learn. 
Eve  ate  of  the  fruit  of  knowledge,  and  the 
glories  of  uncomprehended  Paradise  began  the 
slow  process  of  resolving  themselves  into  so 
much  land  and  so  much  water,  so  many  trees, 
so  many  shrubs,  and  so  many  spotted,  speckled 
and  striped  birds  and  beasts  and  creeping 
things. 

She  sat  at  her  hostess's  right  hand,  and  at 
the  distant  end  of  the  table  she  saw  Randolph, 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  IO/ 

and  saw  him  for  the  first  time  in  all  the  gran 
deur  of  what  he  would  have  called  his  "  war 
paint."  She  accepted  him  as  a  revelation,  and 
wondered  whether  she  had  ever  sufficiently 
revered  him.  When  Alonzo  got  into  evening 
dress,  he  always  looked  as  though  he  might 
break  in  the  middle  if  he  were  carelessly  handled. 
Nothing  of  this  painful  effect  was  observable 
in  Randolph.  To  her  right  was  Mr.  Jedby,  an 
ancient  beau,  who  had  begun  to  wax  his  mous 
tache  in  the  Presidency  of  the  late  Louis  Na 
poleon,  but  whose  juvenility  was  otherwise 
carefully  conserved,  save  in  the  matter  of  his 
collar,  which  was  as  high  as  the  prevailing  style 
required,  yet,  in  pattern,  warped  somewhat  by 
memories  of  an  older  fashion.  Mr.  Jedby  was 
pouring  into  the  ear  of  Miss  Laura  Curtis  a  mo 
notonous  stream  of  gossip,  confined  between 
walls  of  elegant  diction.  Mr.  Jedby  rounded 
his  sentences  as  though  each  one  was  to  be 
taken  down  for  publication  in  the  "  Autobiog 
raphy  of  a  Diner-Out,"  or  the  "  Literary  and 
Anecdotic  Remains  of  Mr.  Richard  Jedby, 
edited  with  a  preface  by  -  — •." 

The  Lisles,  Celia  learnt,  were  at  Vevey ;  the 
Oakleys  at  Bonn.  Where  the  De  la  Hunts 
were  he  should  know  by  the  next  European 
mail.  (Mr.  Jedby  kept  up  a  correspondence — 
a  sort  of  gossip  exchange — with  all  the  idle 


IO8  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

widows  and  busy  old  maids  of  his  acquaintance. 
Yes,  the  Carroll  party  was  in  the  Riviera,  and 
they  were  talking,  at  last  accounts,  of  a  trip 
through  the  south  of  Italy  and  the  Mediter 
ranean  Isles  ;  but  Mr.  Jedby  did  not  believe 
the  plan  would  be  carried  out.  Mortimer 
Faxon  was  with  them,  and  Jack  Ludlow's 
widow,  and  Mr.  Jedby  did  not  believe  she 
would  let  him  get  too  far  from  a  legation. 

"  Opportunity,  my  dear  young  lady,"  said 
Mr.  Jedby,  "  opportunity  is  elusive,  and  should 
be  seized  with  promptitude  and  alacrity." 

It  was  all  a  foreign  language  to  Celia.  Do 
you  remember  your  first  day  at  school,  when 
you  sat  waiting  for  your  assignment  of  lessons, 
and  listened  to  the  elder  classes  reciting  Greek 
verbs  ?  Some  day,  you  knew,  you  would  do 
the  same  thing ;  but  what  a  world  of  unintelli- 
gibility  lay  before  you  ! 

Mr.  Jedby  had  done  no  more  than  acknowl 
edge  his  introduction  to  Miss  Leete  in  the 
drawing-room,  and  he  could  not  even  pay 
attention  to  his  dinner  until  he  had  made  an 
end  of  his  recital  to  Laura  Curtis.  Thus  Celia 
was  left  to  the  ministrations  of  Mrs.  Wykoff, 
who  asked  after  each  member  of  the  Leete 
family  in  turn.  Celia  answered  her  almost 
mechanically,  and  quietly  studied  Mr.  Claggett, 
opposite  her. 


NATURAL    SELECTION,  1 09 

She  did  not,  perhaps,  formulate  the  idea,  but 
she  felt  that  Mr.  Claggett  did  not  altogether 
harmonize  with  his  surroundings.  It  was 
not  only  that  he  was  tall,  gaunt,  and  breezily 
Western  in  all  his  ways  and  manners  ;  it  was 
not  only  that  he  was  a  carelessly  picturesque 
figure  in  a  trim  and  decorous  picture:  in  some 
way  that  she  did  not  attempt  to  define  he  dif 
fered  from  the  types  about  him.  She  was  des 
tined  to  receive  more  light  upon  the  subject. 

Claggett  was,  as  Randolph  Wykoff  fre 
quently  had  occasion  to  assert,  a  good  fellow. 
He  was  also  a  promising  young  artist — in  his 
friend's  eye  the  most  promising  young  artist  of 
the  day.  Randolph  had,  like  most  young  men 
of  his  serious  and  earnest  temperament,  a  circle 
of  youthful  friends  who  were  setting  out  to 
revolutionize  everything  in  Art,  Science,  Litera 
ture,  and  Religion,  and  Claggett  was  the  coming 
apostle  of  Art.  But  what  Harvard  College 
had  done  for  Mr.  Claggett  and  what  Nature  had 
done  for  him  were  two  widely  different  things, 
and  out  of  the  conflict  between  Nature  and  Ed 
ucation  came  a  side-issue  unpleasant  for  Celia. 

It  happened  that  five  or  six  wine-glasses  by 
her  plate  and  a  number  of  courses  presented  to 
her  in  various  styles  and  shapes  somewhat  puz 
zled  this  poor  novice  in  the  ways  of  the  Golden 
World.  She  had  been  trying  hard  to  recollect 


HO  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

what  she  had  learned  at  boarding-school  of  the 
technicalities  of  the  social  board;  but  unfa 
miliar  problems  arrived,  and  some  exhibition 
of  hesitation  or  indecision  attracted  Mr.  Clag- 
gett's  attention.  Now  it  was  not  many  years 
since  Mr.  Claggett  had  wondered  what  terrapin 
might  be,  and  had  boggled  at  croquettes  and 
bouchees.  This  fact  ought  to  have  made  him 
charitable,  and  given  him  a  kindly  sympathy 
for  others  in  such  sad  condition  ;  but  the 
experience  had,  in  truth,  embittered  the  young 
man.  Why  is  the  "  tenderfoot  "  ill-treated  in 
the  far  West  ?  Because  the  "  old  settler"  was 
a  new  settler  but  yesterday.  The  lust  of  tor 
turing  awoke  in  Claggett's  breast. 

The  little  confabs  of  two  or  three  that  began 
a  dinner  had  broken  up.  Conversation  crossed 
and  criss-crossed  the  table.  Mr.  Claggett  ad 
dressed  himself  to  Miss  Leete,  and  began  to 
ply  her  with  questions  in  gastronomy,  designed 
for  her  confusion.  What  were  her  views  on 
the  cooking  of  terrapin  ?  Did  she  agree 
with  a  Baltimore  friend  of  his  who  thought 
that  canvas-back  duck  should  be  cooked  fifty 
seconds  to  the  pound? 

Mrs.  Wykoff,  talking  across  the  board  to 
Mr.  Jedby,  noticed  nothing.  The  Curtis  girls 
did  notice,  and  made  one  or  two  ineffectual 
diversions  in  Celia's  behalf.  Randolph  had 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  Ill 

some  notion  that  his  friend  was  conversing  in 
a  strain  foreign  to  the  normal  Claggett  taste, 
and  good-naturedly  told  him  not  to  be  absurd. 
But  the  baiting  continued  until  Annette  Curtis 
said  under  her  breath — her  face  flushing  hotly 
— "  Mr.  Claggett  !  " 

Claggett,  like  most  people  who  have  gone 
too  far,  went  a  little  farther. 

"  I  was  only  trying  to  take  a  rise  out  of  our 
young  friend,"  he  explained,  aside. 

He  lowered  his  voice  as  he  spoke  ;  but  Celia 
heard  him,  and  the  Curtis  girls  knew  that  she 
had  heard.  Probably  no  one  else  at  the  table 
would  have  known  the  significance  of  that 
piece  of  slang.  But  slang  is  a  part  of  the  mod 
ern  girl's  education,  and  Randolph's  cousins 
were  none  the  worse  for  recognizing  the  phrase 
and  catching  the  rude  allusion.  They  became 
Celia  Leete's  champions  on  the  instant. 

Celia's  eye  flashed,  but  she  said  nothing. 
Mr.  Claggett  looked  at  Miss  Annette  Curtis's 
face,  and  was  silent.  The  dinner  was  ended  in 
peace  and  calm. 

The  good  old  fashion  prevailed  in  the  Wy- 
koff  household,  and  the  gentlemen  had  their 
hour  of  tobacco  and  chartreuse.  In  the  draw 
ing-room  Annette  sang  a  song  or  two,  and  when 
the  men  appeared,  she  and  Randolph  set  them 
selves  to  sorting  out  piles  of  sheet-music. 


112  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

Claggett,  anxious  to  reestablish  himself,  began 
a  little  monologue  on  farm-life  in  Wisconsin. 
He  was  a  sharp  observer  of  externals  ;  and  he 
told  his  tale  with  some  cleverness,  and  he  was 
really  getting  on  very  well  when  it  occurred  to 
him  to  inquire  of  Celia,  with  the  best  intentions 
in  the  world,  but  with  an  unfortunate  inflection  : 

"  Were  you  ever  in  the  West,  Miss  Leete?  " 

"  No,"  said  Celia  ;  "  we  have  too  much  of  the 
West  here,  as  it  is." 

There  was  silence  in  that  place  for  the  space 
of  a  minute  after  this  speech  was  uttered.  An 
expression  of  puzzled  surprise  on  Mr.  Claggett's 
features  slowly  lost  itself  in  a  broad  smile;  but 
there  was  no  smile  on  any  other  face.  Annette 
Curtis,  at  the  piano,  let  her  hands  wander 
over  the  keys,  struck  a  chord  or  two,  and  said  : 

"  Ah  !  that's  it.  Don't  you  want  to  try  that 
anthem  over  with  me,  Laura? — la  la  la  la — 
la  la!  " 

Late  that  night  Mrs.  Wykoff  tapped  at  Celia's 
door.  Celia  was  sitting  up,  ripping  the  party- 
colored  ribbon  from  her  gray  dress,  and  remov 
ing  other  superfluities,  in  conformity  with  sug 
gestions  gathered  from  her  observation  during 
the  evening.  She  went  guiltily  to  the  door, 
and  opened  it  half  way. 

"  I  saw  the  light  in  your  room,"  said  Mrs. 
Wykoff,  "  and  I  was  afraid  you  might  be  ill." 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  113 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Celia,  very  red  and  nervous, 
"I'm  feeling  much  better — I  think  I'll  go  to 
bed  now." 

"  I  hope,"  Mrs.  Wykoff  continued,  her  brows 
contracted  in  an  anxious  way,  "  I  hope  you 
didn't  mind — that  Mr.  Claggett  did  not  say 
anything — anything  that  might— 

"  Oh,  no,"  Celia  interrupted. 

"  He  is  peculiar.  He  is  not  exactly — Ran 
dolph  is  very  fond  of  him,  and  he  is  a  young 
man  of  many  excellent  qualities;  but  his  sense 
of  humor  sometimes  runs  away  with  him,  I'm 
afraid." 

"  I  didn't  mind  him  the  least  little  bit,"  said 

Celia. 

****** 

The  next  day  there  was  tennis  in  the  morn 
ing,  at  which  Celia  looked  on  ;  then  a  drive  to 
the  beach  in  the  afternoon,  and  again  Celia  sat 
with  Mrs.  Wykoff  and  saw  a  quartette  of  ath 
letes  making  merry.  Randolph  and  Claggett 
and  the  two  girls  all  swam  until  Celia  shivered 
in  wasted  sympathy. 

At  twilight  she  took  a  little  walk  with  An 
nette  Curtis,  and  their  walk  brought  them 
through  a  neighboring  country  place,  a  spa 
cious  old  house,  almost  the  mate  of  the  Wykoff 
homestead. 

"That   is  our  place,"  said  Annette,  "or,  at 


H4  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

least,  it  used  to  be,  before  papa — had  troubles. 
We  used  to  live  here  when  Randolph  was  a 
little  boy.  I  don't  remember  much  about  it, 
because  I  was  the  baby,  you  know  ;  but  Laura 
and  Randolph  played  together  all  the  time. 
The  neighbors  used  to  call  them  *  the  twins.' 
They're  almost  of  an  age — Randolph's  just  one 
week  older.  One  day  they  went  out  in  a  boat 
together,  and  the  boat  struck  a  rock  and  sunk, 
and  Randolph  couldn't  swim  then,  and  Laura 
swam  ashore  with  him.  That's  reversing  the 
usual  story,  isn't  it?  And  do  you  know  he 
was  so  angry  with  her  for  being  able  to  swim 
when  he  couldn't,  that  he  wouldn't  speak  to 
her  for  ever  so  long?" 

Thus  began  a  summer  of  country  life.  One 
day  was  like  another.  Randolph  was  as  affec 
tionate  in  private,  as  delicately  attentive  in  the 
presence  of  others  as  his  sense  of  the  propri 
eties  of  the  situation  permitted  him  to  be. 
Celia's  status  was  anomalous,  yet  she  was  not 
uncomfortable.  Although  her  engagement  to 
Randolph  was  never  hinted  at,  she  knew  that 
all  in  the  house  were  in  the  secret,  and  that 
their  discretion  was  to  be  trusted.  There  were 
few  visitors ;  Mr.  Jedby  made  rare  appear 
ances,  and  if  Mr.  Jedby  knew  why  she  was 
under  the  Wykoff  roof,  he  gave  no  sign. 

Claggett  alone  enlivened  the  calm  monotony 


NATURAL    SELECTION'.  H5 

of  Celia's  days.  He  followed  up  his  declara 
tion  of  war  with  a  series  of  attacks,  in  which 
he  generally  got  fully  the  equivalent  of  what 
he  gave.  This  warfare  was  carried  on  without 
the  knowledge  of  Mrs.  Wykoff.  Both  the  com 
batants  feared  her  disapprobation.  Randolph, 
from  his  infinite  height,  saw  something  of  it, 
and  it  annoyed  him.  But,  in  so  far  as  it 
touched  his  own  interests,  he  dismissed  it  with 
the  reflection  in  which  young  men  who  are 
betrothed  sometimes  indulge  themselves,  that 
he  would  have  to  make  some  alterations  in  the 
character  of  his  affianced,  after  the  wedding. 
The  Curtis  girls  saw  and  heard,  and  talked 
much  between  themselves. 

And  Randolph  himself  could  not  long  remain 
in  his  position  of  uninterested  superiority. 
There  came  an  occasion  when  he  was  forced  to 
see  and  act. 

The  young  people  were  off  for  a  day's  sail, 
with  an  incidental  crabbing  expedition,  in  Ran 
dolph's  cat-boat ;  and  toward  the  end  of  the 
homeward  trip  Celia  was  out  of  temper. 

She  had  come  down  to  the  boat  in  the  morn 
ing  attired  in  what  she  had  purchased  for  a 
"  sailor  costume."  There  was  much  white 
braid  about  it,  and  a  stiff  little  white  collar, 
that  later  was  limp.  Then  she  had  found  the 
Curtis  girls  in  old  blue  flannel  gowns,  with 


Il6  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

water-stained  silk  handkerchiefs  knotted  loosely 
at  their  throats.  Randolph  had  looked  at  her 
dress — put  on  for  the  first  time — with  as  near 
an  approach  to  frank  surprise  as  he  was  capa 
ble  of.  Then  she  had  been  sea-sick,  in  a  fee 
ble,  doubtful  way,  through  all  the  outward  sail. 
Then  the  crabbing  came,  to  crush  her  with 
astonishment  and  disappointment.  How  could 
any  one  like  such  a  disgusting  employment  ? 
She  sat  in  the  dirty  flat-bottomed  boat  they 
had  hired  of  the  neighboring  fisherman :  she 
was  rowed  about  the  glaring  waters  of  a  little 
cove ;  she  gazed  with  abhorrence  upon  the 
squirming,  uncanny  crabs,  the  grinning  fish- 
heads,  the  livid  strings  of  soaked  raw  meat,  and 
she  marvelled  how  they  could  laugh  and  chat 
ter  and  enjoy  it  all.  She  was  glad  Dorinda 
could  not  see  her  at  the  moment.  "  They  " 
she  thought — her  "  they  "  was  the  Wykoffs, 
this  time,  not  her  own  family — "  may  be  aw 
fully  swell,  and  we  mayn't  be ;  but  I  know 
none  of  us  would  think  this  was  nice" 

It  was  on  the  sail  home  that  Celia  exhibited 
the  cumulative  effect  of  these  annoyances.  A 
bushel-basket  full  of  crabs  had  been  spilt  in  the 
cockpit,  and  Claggett  was  restoring  the  scut 
tling  wretches  to  their  prison.  Celia  lay  on 
the  seat,  trying  not  to  be  sea-sick.  A  fold  of 
the  white-braided  dress  hung  down  to  the  deck 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  llj 

"  Do  keep  those  nasty  things  away  from  my 
skirt,  Mr.  Claggett !  "  she  said,  with  asperity. 

"  Do  not  be  too  harsh  with  the  crabs,  Miss 
Leete,"  responded  Claggett,  unperturbed ; 
"they  are  simple,  humble,  semi-marine  creat 
ures,  and  they  have  never  seen  a  dress  like 
that  before.  They  merely  wish  to  admire  its 
gorgeousness.  Give  them  a  chance  to  make 
some  approach  to  taste  and  fashion." 

"  Well,"  Celia  returned,  "  they  do  seem  to 
be  getting  away  from  you  as  hard  as  they  can." 

Randolph,  who  was  at  the  tiller,  heard  this. 
A  moment  later  he  was  called  forward  to  the 
halliards,  and  he  did  not  know  that  Celia, 
cheered  up  by  her  own  triumph  of  witticism, 
forgot  her  qualms,  and  engaged  merrily  in  a 
prolonged  contest  of  wit  with  the  young  man 
from  the  West. 

Randolph  waited  until  he  and  Claggett  were 
left  to  put  the  boat  to  rights  for  the  night  ; 
and  then  he  unburdened  his  mind. 

"  Look  here,  Jack,"  he  said,  kindly  but 
firmly ;  "  I  wish  you  wouldn't  talk  to  Miss 
Leete  in  "the  way  you  were  talking  down  in 
the  cock-pit.  It's  all  very  well,  you  know, 
between  fellows,  and  at  college,  and  all  that 
sort  of  thing;  but  I  think  it's  out  of  place 
with  ladies." 

"  Has    Miss    Leete    said    anything   to    you 


Il8  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

about  it?"  Claggett  inquired,  looking  up 
quickly  from  his  work. 

"  She  has  not." 

"  I  thought  not.  You  take  things  too  seri 
ously,  old  man.  She  likes  it,  and  so  would 
you,  if  you  had  any  sense  of  humor.  It's  all 
pure  fun  and  nonsense,  and  she's  quite  well 
able  to  take  care  of  herself." 

"  I  do  not  wish,"  said  Randolph,  coldly, 
"  that  Miss  Leete  should  be  obliged  to  take 
care  of  herself.  I  am  the  best  judge  in  such 
matters;  and  I  suppose  that  you  understand 
the  situation." 

"  No,"  said  Claggett,  standing  up  straight, 
and  looking  his  friend  in  the  eye  :  "  I  do  not 
understand  the  situation." 

"  I  am — "  Randolph  hesitated — "Miss  Leete 
and  I  are  engaged." 

Unfortunately  for  Randolph,  he  could  never 
rid  himself  of  the  idea  that  there  was  a  spe 
cial  sanctity  attaching  to  his  private  and  per 
sonal  affairs.  When  he  was  obliged  to  make 
even  the  most  indirect  mention  of  them,  he 
assumed  the  tone  which  the  boy  at  college 
tries  to  assume  when  you  speak  to  him  of  his 
"  secret  society."  It  is  the  tone  of  stern,  self- 
conscious  dignity  which  some  people  take  on 
in  speaking  of  the  unspeakable  things  of  life. 
I  knew  one  man,  once  upon  a  time,  who  used 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  Iig 

this  tone  whenever  he  had  occasion  to  talk  of 
a  cold  in  the  head.  The  members  of  his  fam 
ily  seemed  to  be  peculiarly  afflicted  with  this 
ailment ;  and,  somehow,  I  got  the  idea  that 
they  were  not  "proper"  people.  Perhaps  Mr. 
Claggett  had  similar  associations  with  the  pecul' 
iar  tone,  for  he  smiled  in  a  way  that  greatly 
irritated  Mr.  Wykoff.  And  then  he  dealt  a 
blow  which  left  his  friend  paralyzed  and  dumb 
with  inexpressible  indignation. 

"  Well,"  Mr.  Claggett  said,  "  I  don't  know 
of  any  man  more  peculiarly  fitted  to  make 
her  unhappy." 

He  shouldered  the  sweeps,  and  walked  off 
to  the  boat-house.  Wykoff  stood  still  for  a 
minute,  nearly,  and  his  soul  boiled  within  him. 
He  wanted  to  do  to  Claggett  many  things 
which  he  could  not  do,  under  the  social  con 
ditions  of  our  age.  Perhaps  he  came  near  to 
attempting  some  of  them.  But  he  checked 
himself.  Instead,  he  walked  for  half  an  hour 
on  the  sands,  arid  thought  it  all  over.  It  may 
be  that  he  communed  with  the  spirit  of  his 
father,  for  a  glimmering  of  John  Wykoff's  good 
sense  visited  his  excited  brain.  He  resolved 
to  wreak  no  vengeance  on  the  irreverent  Clag 
gett,  but  to  establish  for  him  a  suitable 
"  place  "  in  the  social  scale  ;  to  put  him  there, 
and  to  keep  him  there.  He  carried  out  his 


120  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

programme  to  the  letter.  He  put  Claggett  in 
his  "  place  "  at  once,  and  he  kept  him  there. 
There  was  only  one  limitation  to  his  satisfac 
tion  :  Claggett  never  seemed  to  know  what 
had  happened  to  him. 

****** 

Celia  had  accommodated  herself  to  her  sur 
roundings — how  thoroughly  she  did  not  know 
until  a  little  thing  set  her  to  thinking. 

Old  habit  led  her  to  rise  early,  when  only 
the  servants  were  stirring.  The  mail  of  the 
previous  night  was  brought  in  from  the  distant 
post-office  early  in  the  morning,  and  was  spread 
out  on  a  table  in  the  hall.  It  was  a  week  after 
her  arrival  that  Celia  came  down  and  found  a 
letter  from  Dorinda  awaiting  her — a  letter  in 
an  envelope  of  pink,  bordered  with  pale  blue, 
stamped  with  a  huge  initial  L,  and  scented. 
She  snatched  it  up  with  an  involuntary  move 
ment  of  concealment ;  checked  herself,  and 
then  walked  out  into  the  clear  sunshine  with  a 
guilty  and  troubled  heart.  Was  she  ashamed 
of  her  own  people  ?  Or  was  it  only  that  she 
was  rightly  ashamed  of  her  people's  ways? 
Where  was  she  drifting— where  had  she  drifted  ? 
Had  she  turned  her  back  on  the  little  frame 
house  in  Chelsea  Village?  What  lay  before 
her  here  in  the  house  of  strangers? 


NATURAL   SELECTION.  121 

Poor  little  Eve !  she  had  to  look  around 
Paradise,  and  ask  herself  how  she  liked  it.  And 
she  had  to  confess  to  herself  that  only  as  a 
mystery  was  it  wholly  delightful. 

Personalities  were  not  the  staple  of  conver 
sation  in  the  Wykoff  household ;  yet  personali 
ties  there  must  be,  and  these  were  still  Greek 
to  Celia.  And  even  in  the  employments  of 
every  day  she  found  herself  set  apart  from  all 
the  others.  She  tried  to  play  tennis,  and  gave 
it  up,  after  a  little  while.  Her  muscles  were 
flaccid  ;  her  heart  rebelled  at  the  least  strain ; 
flushing  and  palpitating,  she  went  to  sit  with 
Mrs.  Wykoff,  an  uninterested  spectator.  It 
was  the  same  at  the  afternoon  swim — she 
could  not  overcome  her  dread  of  the  pounding 
surf.  She  tried  to  walk  with  the  Curtis  girls, 
and  three  miles  in  an  hour  sent  her  to  bed  sore 
and  tired.  Indeed,  she  reflected,  she  had  not 
come  there  to  bat  tennis-balls,  to  swim,  to 
tramp  over  sandy  roads.  These  things  had  no 
charm  for  her.  Perhaps  the  pleasantest  time 
of  all  the  day  was  when  she  leaned  back  in 
Mrs.  Wykoff 's  victoria  and  rolled  gently  through 
the  streets  of  the  village,  when  the  summer 
boarders  sat  on  the  verandas  and  stared  hard 
at  the  plump  horses  and  the  carriage. 

In  August  the  Curtis  girls  went  to  join  their 
mother  in  the  Catskills.  Laura  went  to  Celia's 


122  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

room  to  bid  her  good-bye.  She  put  her  arms 
around  Celia's  neck  "  Be  good  to  him,  my 
dear,"  she  said. 

******* 

It  was  a  dull  day  after  they  went.  Mrs. 
Wykoff  seemed  to  be  anxious  and  apprehen 
sive.  Randolph  was  grave.  Claggett  was 
moody  and  cynical.  Celia  showed  depression 
of  spirits  in  her  dull  silence. 

"  I  wonder  if  Claggett  annoys  her  in  any 
way,"  Randolph  said  to  his  mother,  who  only 
shook  her  head. 

He  saw  her  grow  more  listless  day  by  day ; 
but  he  loyally  waited  for  the  appointed  hour. 
When  it  came,  he  sought  her  out,  and  found 
her  in  a  far  corner  of  the  old-fashioned  gar 
den. 

.  "  Celia,"  he  said,  "  it  is  time  to  announce  our 
engagement." 

An  hour  later  he  walked  into  his  mother's 
room,  very  pale,  but  collected,  as  became  a 
Harvard  man. 

"  It  is  all  over,  mother,"  he  said  ;  "  and  I  am 
going  away  on  Saturday.  I  think  I  shall  go  to 
California.  I  think  I  can  do  something  there. 
I  have  an  idea  of  providing  proper  homes  for 
the  farm-laborers." 

He  was  John  Wykoff  s  son,  and  there  was 
no  arguing  with  him.  Mrs.  Wykoff  listened  to 


NATURAL    SELECTION.  123 

all  he  would  tell  her,  and  then  went  to  find 
Celia.  Celia  was  in  her  room,  packing  up  her 
clothes  in  hysterical  haste.  Mrs.  Wykoff  took 
her  in  her  arms. 

"  I  can't  help  it,"  Celia  sobbed  ;  "  I  feel 
mean  and  wicked,  but  I  can't  do  anything  else. 
I  did  love  him,  and  I  do  think  he's  the  best 
man  in  the  world — he's  just  as  good  and  noble 
as  he  can  be — but  I  couldn't  be  happy  this  way, 
Mrs.  Wykoff !  I  don't  like  it — I  couldn't  get 
along  at  all.  I've  made  a  mistake — I've  made 
a  mistake  right  from  the  first ;  but  I  won't 
make  any  more  mistakes,  and  I  won't  make  his 
life  miserable  because  I've  spoiled  my  own. 
Oh,  don't  be  so  good  to  me,  Mrs.  Wykoff — I 
don't  deserve  it — I'm  a  wretched  girl !  Just 
let  me  go  home — that's  where  I  belong !  " 

Mrs.  Wykoff  was  as  gentle  as  only  a  wise, 
kindly,  worldly  woman  can  be.  She  soothed 
poor  Celia,  and  made  her  understand  that,  for 
the  sake  of  appearances,  at  least,  she  must  out 
stay  the  broken-hearted  philanthropist  bound 
for  California.  Celia  stayed.  Randolph  made 
his  preparations  and  went,  hopelessly  gloomy, 
but  punctiliously  courteous  and  considerate  to 
the  last. 

After  a  quick  fortnight,  Celia  knocked  at 
Mrs.  Wykoff's  room  to  say  good-bye.  She 
tried,  with  a  full  heart,  to  give  some  measure 


124  NATURAL    SELECTION. 

of  thanks  for  the  kindness  that  was  the  one 
real  thing  to  her  in  the  world  she  was  quitting. 
When  she  had  made  her  timorous  attempt,  she 
blushed  and  trembled,  and  grew  more  timor 
ous  yet. 

"  There's  something — you  ought  to  know," 
she  said,  huskily ;  "  I — I — I  know  it  seems 
queer — but — but  I  couldn't  help  it.  While 
Randolph — while  Mr.  Wykoff — while  he  was 
here,  you  know,  I  wouldn't  listen  to  it ;  I 
wouldn't  let  him— I  mean — I  wouldn't  have  let 
anybody  say  anything  to  me,  although  we 
both — "  Celia's  voice  was  all  but  inaudible — 
"  understood — how  we  felt.  But  now  it's 
different,  you  know  ;  and — and — Mrs.  Wykoff, 
I'm  not  a  wicked  girl,  but — I'm  going  to  marry 
Mr.  Claggett ! " 


CASPERL 


/CASPERL  was  a  wood-chopper,  and  the 
^-^  son  of  a  wood-chopper,  and  although  he 
was  only  eighteen  when  his  father  died,  he  was 
so  strong  and  active,  that  he  went  on  chopping 
and  hauling  wood  for  the  whole  neighborhood  ; 
and  people  said  he  did  it  quite  as  well  as  his 
father,  while  he  was  certainly  a  great  deal 
more  pleasant  in  his  manner  and  much  more 
willing  to  oblige  others. 

It  was  a  poor  country,  however,  for  it  was 
right  in  the  heart  of  the  Black  Forest,  and 
there  were  more  witches  and  fairies  and  gob 
lins  there  than  healthy  human  beings.  So  Cas- 
perl  scarcely  made  a  living,  for  all  he  worked 
hard  and  rose  up  early  in  the  morning,  summer 
and  winter.  His  friends  often  advised  him  to 
go  to  some  better  place,  where  he  could  earn 
more  money ;  but  he  only  shook  his  head  and 
said  that  the  place  was  good  enough  for  him. 

He  never  told  any  one,  though,  why  he 
loved  his  poor  hut  in  the  depths  of  the  dark 


126  CASPERL. 

forest,  because  it  was  a  secret  which  he  did 
not  wish  to  share  with  strangers.  For  he  had 
discovered,  a  mile  or  two  from  his  home,  in  the 
very  blackest  part  of  the  woods,  an  enchanted 
mountain.  It  was  a  high  mountain,  covered 
with  trees  and  rocks  and  thick,  tangled  under 
growth,  except  at  the  very  top,  where  there 
stood  a  castle  surrounded  by  smooth,  green 
lawns  and  beautiful  gardens,  which  were  always 
kept  in  the  neatest  possible  order,  although  no 
gardener  was  ever  seen. 

This  enchanted  mountain  had  been  under  a 
spell  for  nearly  two  hundred  years.  The  lovely 
Princess  who  lived  there  had  once  ruled  the 
whole  country.  But  a  powerful  and  wicked 
magician  disguised  himself  as  a  prince,  and 
made  love  to  her.  At  first  the  Princess  loved 
her  false  suitor ;  but  one  day  she  found  out 
that  he  was  not  what  he  pretended  to  be,  and 
she  told  him  to  leave  her  and  never  to  come 
near  her  again. 

"  For  you  are  not  a  prince,"  she  said.  "  You 
are  an  impostor,  and  I  will  never  wed  any  but 
a  true  prince." 

"  Very  well,"  said  the  magician,  in  a  rage. 
"  You  shall  wait  for  your  true  prince,  if  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  a  true  prince  ;  and  you  shall 
marry  no  one  till  he  comes." 

And  then  the  magician  cast  a  spell  upon  the 


CASPERL.  127 

beautiful  castle  on  the  top  of  the  mountain, 
and  the  terrible  forest  sprang  up  about  it. 
Rocks  rose  up  out  of  the  earth  and  piled  them 
selves  in  great  heaps  among  the  tree-trunks. 
Saplings  and  brush  and  twisted,  poisonous 
vines  came  to  fill  up  every  crack  and  crevice, 
so  that  no  mortal  man  could  possibly  go  to  the 
summit,  except  by  one  path,  which  was  pur 
posely  left  clear.  And  in  that  path  there  was 
a  gate  that  the  strongest  man  could  not  open, 
it  was  so  heavy.  Farther  up  the  mountain 
slope,  the  trunk  of  a  tree  lay  right  across  the 
way, — a  magic  tree,  that  no  one  could  climb 
over  or  crawl  under  or  cut  through.  And 
beyond  the  gate  and  the  tree  was  a  dragon 
with  green  eyes  that  frightened  away  every 
man  that  looked  at  it. 

And  there  the  beautiful  Princess  was  doomed 
to  live  until  the  True  Prince  should  arrive  and 
overcome  these  three  obstacles. 

Now,  although  none  of  the  people  in  the 
forest,  except  Casperl,  knew  of  the  mountain 
or  the  Princess,  the  story  had  been  told  in 
many  distant  countries,  and  year  after  year 
young  princes  came  from  all  parts  of  the  earth 
to  try  to  rescue  the  lovely  captive  and  win  her 
for  a  bride.  But,  one  after  the  other,  they  all 
tried  and  failed, — the  best  of  them  could  not 
so  much  as  open  the  gate. 


128  CASPERL. 

And  so  there  the  Princess  remained,  as  the 
years  went  on.  But  she  did  not  grow  any 
older,  or  any  less  beautiful,  for  she  was  still 
waiting  for  the  True  Prince,  and  she  believed 
that  some  day  he  would  come. 

This  was  what  kept  Casperl  from  leaving  the 
Black  Forest.  He  was  sorry  for  the  Princess, 
and  he  hoped  some  day  to  see  her  rescued  and 
wedded  to  the  True  Prince. 

Every  evening,  when  his  work  was  done,  he 
would  walk  to  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  and 
sit  down  on  a  great  stone,  and  look  up  to  the 
top,  where  the  Princess  was  walking  in  her 
garden.  And  as  it  was  an  enchanted  moun 
tain,  he  could  see  her  clearly,  although  she 
was  so  far  away.  Yes,  he  could  see  her  face  as 
well  as  though  she  were  close  by  him,  and  he 
thought  it  was  truly  the  loveliest  face  in  the 
world. 

There  he  would  sit  and  sadly  watch  the 
princes  who  tried  to  climb  the  hill.  There  was 
scarcely  a  day  that  some  prince  from  a  far 
country  did  not  come  to  make  the  attempt. 
One  after  another,  they  would  arrive  with 
gorgeous  trains  of  followers,  mounted  on  fine 
horses,  and  dressed  in  costumes  so  magnificent 
that  a  plain  cloth-of-gold  suit  looked  shabby 
among  them.  They  would  look  up  to  the 
mountain-top  and  see  the  Princess  walking 


CASPERL.  129 

there,  and  they  would  praise  her  beauty  so 
warmly  that  Casperl,  when  he  heard  them,  felt 
sure  he  was  quite  right  in  thinking  her  the 
loveliest  woman  in  the  world. 

But  every  prince  had  to  make  the  trial  by 
himself.  That  was  one  of  the  conditions  which 
the  magician  made  when  he  laid  the  spell  upon 
the  castle ;  although  Casperl  did  not  know  it. 

And  each  prince  would  throw  off  his  cloak, 
and  shoulder  a  silver  or  gold-handled  axe,  and 
fasten  his  sword  by  his  side,  and  set  out  to 
climb  the  hill,  and  open  the  gate,  and  cut 
through  the  fallen  tree,  and  slay  the  dragon, 
and  wed  the  Princess. 

Up  he  would  go,  bright  and  hopeful,  and  tug 
away  at  the  gate  until  he  found  that  he  could 
do  nothing  with  it,  and  then  he  would  plunge 
into  the  tangled  thickets  of  underbrush,  and 
try  his  best  to  fight  his  way  through  to  the 
summit. 

But  every  one  of  them  came  back,  after  a 
while,  with  his  fine  clothes  torn  and  his  soft 
skin  scratched,  all  tired  and  disheartened  and 
worn  out.  And  then  he  would  look  spitefully 
up  at  the  mountain,  and  say  he  didn't  care  so 
much  about  wedding  the  Princess,  after  all ; 
that  she  .was  only  a  common  enchanted  prin 
cess,  just  like  any  other  enchanted  princess, 
and  really  not  worth  so  much  trouble. 
9 


130  CASPERL. 

This  would  grieve  Casperl,  for  he  couldn't 
help  thinking  that  it  was  impossible  that  any 
other  woman  could  be  as  lovely  as  his  Princess. 
You  see,  he  called  her  his  Princess,  because  he 
took  such  an  interest  in  her,  and  he  didn't 
think  there  could  be  any  harm  in  speaking  of 
her  in  that  way,  just  to  himself.  For  he  never 
supposed  she  could  even  know  that  there  was 
such  a  humble  creature  as  poor  young  Casperl, 
the  wood-chopper,  who  sat  at  the  foot  of  the 
hill  and  looked  up  at  her. 

And  so  the  days  went  on,  and  the  unlucky 
princes  came  and  went,  and  Casperl  watched 
them  all.  Sometimes  he  saw  his  Princess  look 
down  from  over  the  castle  parapets,  and 
eagerly  follow  with  her  lovely  eyes  the  strug 
gles  of  some  brave  suitor  through  the  thick 
ets,  until  the  poor  Prince  gave  up  the  job  in 
despair.  Then  she  would  look  sad  and  turn 
away.  But  generally  she  paid  no  attention  to 
the  attempts  that  were  made  to  reach  her. 
That  kind  of  thing  had  been  going  on  so  long 
that  she  was  quite  used  to  it. 

By  and  by,  one  summer  evening,  as  Casperl 
sat  watching,  there  came  a  little  prince  with  a 
small  train  of  attendants.  He  was  rather 
undersized  for  a  prince  ;  he  didn't  look  strong, 
and  he  did  look  as  though  he  slept  too  much 
in  the  morning  and  too  little  at  night.  He 


CASPERL.  131 

slipped  off  his  coat,  however,  and  climbed  up  the 
road,  and  began  to  push  and  pull  at  the  gate. 

Casperl  watched  him  carelessly  for  a  while, 
and  then,  happening  to  look  up,  he  saw  that 
the  Princess  was  gazing  sadly  down  on  the 
poor  little  Prince  as  he  tugged  and  toiled. 

And  then  a  bold  idea  came  to  Casperl.  Why 
shouldn't  he  help  the  Prince  ?  He  was  young 
and  strong;  he  had  often  thought  that  if  he 
were  a  prince,  a  gate  like  that  should  not  keep 
him  away  from  the  Princess.  Why,  indeed, 
should  he  not  give  his  strength  to  help  to  free 
the  Princess  ?  And  he  felt  a  great  pity  for  the 
poor  little  Prince,  too. 

So  he  walked  modestly  up  the  hill  and 
offered  his  services  to  the  Prince. 

"  Your  Royal  Highness,"  he  said,  "  I  am 
only  a  wood-chopper ;  but,  if  you  please,  I  am 
a  strong  wood-chopper,  and  perhaps  I  can  be  of 
use  to  you." 

"  But  why  should  you  take  the  trouble  to 
help  me  ?"  inquired  the  Prince.  "What  good 
will  it  do  you  ?  " 

"  Oh,  well !  "  said  Casperl,  "  it  is  helping  the 
Princess,  too,  don't  you  know?  " 

"  No,  I  don't  know,"  said  the  Prince. 
4<  However,  you  may  try  what  you  can  do. 
Here,  put  your  shoulder  to  this  end  of  the 
gate,  and  I  will  stand  right  behind  you." 


I32  CASPERL, 

Now,  Casperl  did  not  know  that  it  was  for 
bidden  to  any  suitor  to  have  help  in  his  at 
tempt  to  climb  the  hill.  The  Prince  knew  it, 
though,  but  he  said  to  himself,  u  When  I  am 
through  with  this  wood-chopper  I  will  dismiss 
him,  and  no  one  will  know  anything  about  it. 
I  can  never  lift  this  gate  by  myself.  I  will 
let  him  do  it  for  me,  and  thus  I  shall  get  the 
Princess,  and  he  will  be  just  as  well  satisfied, 
for  he  is  only  a  wood-chopper." 

So  Casperl  put  his  broad  shoulder  to  the 
gate  and  pushed  with  all  his  might.  It  was 
very  heavy,  but  after  a  while  it  began  to  move 
a  little. 

"  Courage,  your  Royal  Highness  !  "  said  Cas 
perl.  "  We'll  move  it,  after  all."  But  if  he 
had  looked  over  his  shoulder,  he  would  have 
seen  that  the  little  Prince  was  not  pushing  at 
all,  but  that  he  had  put  on  his  cloak,  and  was 
standing  idly  by,  laughing  to  himself  at  the 
way  he  was  making  a  wood-chopper  do  his 
work  for  him. 

After  a  long  struggle,  the  gate  gave  way, 
and  swung  open  just  wide  enough  to  let  them 
through.  It  was  a  close  squeeze  for  the  Prince  ; 
but  Casperl  held  the  gate  open  until  he  slipped 
through. 

"  Dear  me,"  said  the  Prince,  "  you're  quite  a 
strong  fellow.  You  really  were  of  some  assist- 


CASPERL.  133 

ance  to  me.  Let  me  see,  I  think  the  stories 
say  something  about  a  tree,  or  some  such 
thing,  farther  up  the  road.  As  you  are  a  wood- 
chopper,  and  as  you  have  your  axe  with  you, 
perhaps  you  might  walk  up  a  bit  and  see  if 
you  can't  make  yourself  useful." 

Casperl  was  quite  willing,  for  he  began  to 
feel  that  he  was  doing  something  for  the 
Princess,  and  it  pleased  him  to  think  that  even 
a  wood-chopper  could  do  her  a  service. 

So  they  walked  up  until  they  came  to  the 
tree.  And  then  the  Prince  drew  out  his  silver 
axe,  and  sharpened  it  carefully  on  the  sole  of 
his  shoe,  while  Casperl  picked  up  a  stone  and 
whetted  his  old  iron  axe,  which  was  all  he  had. 

"  Now,"  said  the  Prince,  "  let's  see  what  we 
can  do." 

But  he  really  didn't  do  anything.  It  was 
Casperl  who  swung  his  axe  and  chopped  hard 
at  the  magic  tree.  Every  blow  made  the  chips 
fly ;  but  the  wood  grew  instantly  over  every 
cut,  just  as  though  he  had  been  cutting  into 
water. 

For  a  little  while  the  Prince  amused  himself 
by  trying  first  to  climb  over  the  tree,  and  then 
to  crawl  under  it.  But  he  soon  found  that, 
whichever  way  he  went,  the  tree  grew  up  or 
down  so  fast  that  he  was  shut  off.  Finally  he 
gave  it  up,  and  went  and  lay  down  on  his 


134  CASPERL. 

back  on  the  grass,  and  watched  Casperl  work 
ing. 

And  Casperl  worked  hard.  The  tree  grew 
fast,  but  he  chopped  faster.  His  forehead  was 
wet  and  his  arms  were  tired,  but  he  worked 
away  and  made  the  chips  fly  in  a  cloud.  He 
was  too  busy  to  take  the  time  to  look  over 
his  shoulder,  so  he  did  not  see  the  Prince  lying 
on  the  grass.  But  every  now  and  then  he 
spoke  cheerily,  saying,  "  We'll  do  it,  your 
Royal  Highness!  " 

And  he  did  it,  in  the  end.  After  a  long, 
long  while,  he  got  the  better  of  the  magic  tree, 
for  he  chopped  quicker  than  it  could  grow,  and 
at  last  he  had  cut  a  gap  right  across  the  trunk. 

The  Prince  jumped  up  from  the  grass  and 
leaped  nimbly  through,  and  Casperl  followed 
him  slowly  and  sadly,  for  he  was  tired,  and  it 
began  to  occur  to  him  that  the  Prince  hadn't 
said  anything  about  the  Princess,  which  made 
him  wonder  if  he  were  the  True  Prince,  after 
all.  "I'm  afraid,"  he  thought,  "the  Princess 
won't  thank  me  if  I  bring  her  a  prince  who 
doesn't  love  her.  And  it  really  is  very  strange 
that  this  Prince  has  n't  said  a  word  about  her." 

So  he  ventured  to  remark,  very  meekly  : 

"Your  Royal  Highness  will  be  glad  to  see 
the  Princess." 

"  Oh,  no  doubt,"  said  the  Prince. 


CASPERL.  135 

"  And  the  Princess  will  be  very  glad  to  see 
your  Royal  Highness,"  went  on  Casperl. 

"  Oh,  of  course,"  said  the  Prince. 

"And  your  Royal  Highness  will  be  very 
good  to  the  Princess,"  said  Casperl  further,  by 
way  of  a  hint. 

"  I  think,"  said  the  Prince,  "  that  you  are 
talking  altogether  too  much  about  the  Princess. 
I  don't  believe  I  need  you  any  more.  Perhaps 
you  would  better  go  home.  I'm  much  obliged 
to  you  for  your  assistance.  I  can't  reward 
you  just  now,  but  if  you  will  come  to  see  me 
after  I  have  married  the  Princess,  I  may  be 
able  to  do  something  for  you." 

Casperl  turned  away,  somewhat  disappointed, 
and  was  going  down  the  hill,  when  the  Prince 
called  him  back. 

"  Oh,  by  the  way !  "  he  said ;  "  there's  a 
dragon,  I  understand,  a  little  farther  on.  Per 
haps  you'd  like  to  come  along  and  see  me  kill 
him?" 

Casperl  thought  he  would  like  to  see  the 
Prince  do  something  for  the  Princess,  so  he 
followed  meekly  on.  Very  soon  they  came  to 
the  top  of  the  mountain,  and  saw  the  green 
lawns  and  beautiful  gardens  of  the  enchanted 
castle, — and  there  was  the  dragon  waiting  for 
them. 

The  dragon  reared  itself  on  its  dreadful  tail, 


136  CASPERL. 

and  flapped  its  black  wings ;  and  its  great 
green,  shining,  scaly  body  swelled  and  twisted, 
and  it  roared  in  a  terrible  way. 

The  little  Prince  drew  his  jewelled  sword  and 
walked  slowly  up  to  the  monster.  And  then 
the  great  beast  opened  its  red  mouth  and  blew 
out  one  awful  breath,  that  caught  the  Prince 
up  as  if  he  were  a  feather,  and  whisked  him 
clear  off  the  mountain  and  over  the  tops  of  the 
trees  in  the  valley,  and  that  was  the  last  any  one 
ever  saw  of  him. 

Then  Casperl  grasped  his  old  axe  and  leaped 
forward  to  meet  the  dragon,  never  stopping  to 
think  how  poor  his  weapon  was.  But  all  of  a 
sudden  the  dragon  vanished  and  disappeared 
and  was  gone,  and  there  was  no  trace  of  it  any 
where  ;  but  the  beautiful  Princess  stood  in  its 
place,  and  smiled  and  held  out  her  white  hand 
to  Casperl. 

"  My  Prince  !  "  she  said,  "  so  you  have  come 
at  last !  " 

"  I  beg  your  gracious  Highness's  pardon," 
said  Casperl ;  "  but  I  am  no  Prince." 

"  Oh,  yes,  you  are,"  said  the  Princess  ;  "  how 
did  you  come  here,  if  you  are  not  my  True 
Prince  ?  Didn't  you  come  through  the  gate 
and  across  the  tree,  and  haven't  you  driven 
the  dragon  away  ?  " 

"  I  only  helped — "  began  Casperl. 


CASPERL.  137 

"You  did  it  all,"  said  the  Princess,  "for  I 
saw  you.  Please  don't  contradict  a  lady." 

"But  I  don't  see  how  I  could—  '  Casperl 
began  again. 

"  People  who  are  helping  others,"  said  the 
Princess,  "  often  have  a  strength  beyond  their 
own.  But  perhaps  you  didn't  come  here  to 
help  me,  after  all  ?  " 

"Oh,  your  gracious  Highness,"  cried  Cas 
perl,  "there's  nothing  I  wouldn't  do  to  help 
you.  But  I'm  sure  I'm  not  a  Prince." 

"And  I  am  sure  you  are/'  said  the  Princess, 
and  she  led  him  to  a  fountain  near  by,  and 
when  he  looked  at  his  reflection  in  the 
water,  he  saw  that  he  was  dressed  more  mag 
nificently  than  any  prince  who  ever  yet  had 
come  to  the  enchanted  mountain. 

And  just  then  the  wedding-bells  began  to 
ring,  and  that  is  all  I  know  of  the  fairy  story, 
for  Casperl  and  the  Princess  lived  so  happily 
ever  after  in  the  castle  on  top  of  the  moun 
tain  that  they  never  came  down  to  tell  the  rest 
of  it. 


A  SECOND-HAND  STORY. 


VN1TED  STATES  O 


T  HAVE  a  small  book,  and  a  small  story,  that 
L  I  bought,  the  two  together,  for  fifteen  cents. 
He  thought,  I  suppose, 
that  he  was  selling  the 
book  alone  ;  and  I  must 
admit  that  it  was  but 
a  shabby  sort  of  book. 
You  will  hardly  find  it 
in  the  catalogues.  It  is 
not  a  first  edition.  It 
is  not  a  tall  copy — it  is 
a  squat  little  volume, 
in  truth.  It  bears  a 
modest  imprimatur. 

The  title-page  reads 
thus  : 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know," 
said  the  bookseller,  as  I 
leaned  over  the  "sec 
ond-hand  counter," 
and  held  it  up  to  him. 


AN  IMPROVEMENT  OF  THE  OLD  VERSION 

Allowed  by  the  reverend  Synod  of  New- 
York  and  Philadelphia,  to  be  uftd  in 
Churches  and  private  Families. 


All  thingt  written  in  the  la-vi  of  Mqfet, 
and  the  prophets,  and  the  pfalms,  con 
cerning  ME,  muH  be  fulfilled. 


ELIZABETH  TOWN.- 
PKIVTCD  BY  SHEPAR.D  KOLLOCK. 

JLU)CC.XCI. 


"  Fifteen  cents,  if  you  want  it. 
something  you  ought  to  see ' 


Now,  heres 


140  A    SECOND-HAND   STORY. 

But  I  did  not  care  to  see  it.  I  took  my 
fifteen  cents'  worth  away,  and  asked  myself 
in  what  Elizabethtown  it  was  printed ;  what 
manner  of  man  Shepard  Kollock  might  have 
been  ;  but  most,  what  human  being  owned 
this  little  book,  handled  it,  read  it,  sang  from 
it — belonged  to  it,  in  short,  as  we  all  belong 
to  our  books. 

I  am  told  that  to  the  man  who  has  deter 
mined  to  hand  his  conscience  over  to  the 
keeping  of  an  established  church  this  much 
liberty  of  personal  choice  is  conceded :  that 
he  may  elect  to  which  one  of  the  established 
churches  he  will  make  delivery.  Of  this  initial 
liberty  of  personal  choice  I  shall  take  advan 
tage  in  my  search  after  truth.  To  discover 
the  true  history  of  this  volume,  I  must  ac 
cept  certain  premises,  and  draw  conclusions 
there  from.  If  the 

y&&ffi$@¥$®£%^^%&  conclusions  are  wrong, 

the  premises  are  clear- 

PhilaJelpbia,  May  nth,  1787.- 

THE  Synod  of  New-Tori  and  Pbt.      ty  to  blame,  and  I  am 

ladf/fbta  did  allow  Dr.  Watts's  Imi-         not. 

tation  of  David's 'Pfalms,  asrni/edfy  Now,    I    find,  On    the 

Mr.Bertaa.tobejugiitbeCburcbtt.      second     page,     behind 

cad  Families  under  their  care.  .  ..•,         .  •,  .  n-    •    1 

_,  ....    .,  the    title,    this    official 

Extraflej frcm  tie  rtcordt  cf  Synod,  t) 

GEORGE DUFFIELD,  D. D.         commission    of    the 

Stated  Clerk  of  Sjnai. 

book  : 
N6iei6ieieiei6ieieieieieiei9K          Hence  we  may  set  out 


A    SECOND-HAND   STOKY.  14! 

with  the  almost  certain  knowledge  that  this 
copy  of  Mr.  Barlow's  revision  was  owned  in 
Pennsylvania,  in  New  York,  or  in  New  Jersey, 
tucked  away  between  them.  If  the  owner  were 
a  Pennsylvanian,  why  did  the  book  not  drift, 
in  the  end,  to  Philadelphia  instead  of  to  New 
York  ? — there  are  book-shops  in  Philadelphia, 
I  think.  I  found  it  in  New  York,  yet  I  hardly 
think  it  was  first  sold  there.  Dr.  Watts 
must  have  been  tongueless  among  the  Dutch 
churches  in  1791,  and  he  could  hardly  have 
been  made  welcome  among  the  modish 
Church-of-England  sinners  in  Trinity  or  St. 
John's.  It  was  in  New  Jersey,  then,  that  she 
lived— for  I  have  decided  that  this  book  was 
owned  by  a  woman  and  that  her  name  was 
Prudence — in  New  Jersey,  perhaps  on  some 
rich  lowland  along  the  calm  Passaic. 

I  have  a  fancy  that  I  know  the  place.  It  is 
a  small  town,  set  between  the  river  and  the 
softly  rising  hills  that  slope  and  fall  and  slope 
and  fall  to  the  feet  of  the  Orange  Mountains. 
Half-way  up  the  long  main  street  lies  a  little 
triangle  of  green,  bounded  by  posts  and 
chains,  that  is  called  "  the  square."  The 
church  stands  on  the  highest  side,  a  solid 
building  of  reddish-brown  stone,  with  plain 
rectangular  windows,  that  look  blankly  out 


I42  A    SECOND-HAND   STORY. 

from  their  many  panes  of  pale  green  flint 
glass.  It  has  a  squat  wooden  spire,  painted 
white — a  white  that  has  been  softened  and 
made  pleasant  to  the  eye  by  the  ministrations 
of  the  weather.  Directly  opposite  the  church 
is  a  large  square  house  of  brick,  with  stone 
about  the  doors  and  windows,  and  with  a  little 
white-painted  Grecian  portico — on  that  the 
paint  is  ever  white  and  new,  defying  the  kindly 
hand  of  time.  That  is  the  Squire's  house,  and 
that  is  where  Prudence  lives. 

There  are  trees  all  around  the  square,  and 
trees  in  it — chestnuts  and  graceful  beeches  and 
young  oaks — trees  that  seem  to  bring  some 
thing  of  the  wood  into  the  heart  of  the  town. 
You  will  not  see  the  great  drooping  arbors  of 
the  New  England  elms,  set  at  regular  intervals, 
massive,  shapely,  and  urban.  These  are  children 
of  the  forest,  not  afraid  to  venture  into  the 
little  town  and  to  scatter  themselves  about  her 
grassy  streets. 

Their  boughs,  that  wave  in  the  sunlight,  are 
almost  the  only  things  that  move,  early  of  a 
summer  Sunday  morning.  The  front  doors 
are  closed  that  of  a  week-day  open  wide  their 
broad  upper  halves.  There  are  no  people  in 
the  streets.  Everybody  is  within  doors,  mak 
ing  ready  for  church.  Even  the  dogs  refrain 


A    SECOND-HAND   STORY.  143 

from  running  about  the  highways  and  byways 
on  the  aimless  errands  which  dogs  affect  ;  they 
lie  in  the  sun  on  the  doorsteps  and  wait  the 
appearance  of  that  human  world  of  which  they 
are  but  a  humble  auxiliary.  Perhaps  Prudence, 
pinning  her  neckerchief  before  her  dressing 
glass,  gives  a  look  through  her  window — hers 
is  the  little  room  over  the  front  door — the 
window  with  the  fan-light  at  the  top — and 
smiles  to  see  the  sunshine  and  the  billowing 
leaves  flickering  red  and  green  ;  but  she  is  the 
only  woman  in  the  town  who  has  a  thought 
to  give  to  anything  save  the  great  business  of 
Sunday  morning  tiring. 

At  last  the  old  sexton  stalks  across  the 
square,  and  opens  the  church  doors  with  his 
huge  iron  key.  Out  of  the  sunlight  he  van 
ishes  into  the  black  hollow  of  the  vestibule  ; 
there  is  silence  for  a  moment,  then  the  husky 
whir  of  the  rope  over  the  wooden  wheel  on 
high,  and  the  bell  clangs  out  brazen  and  loud, 
and  the  startled  birds  rise  for  a  second  above 
the  tree-tops,  and  Sunday  life  begins. 

You  will  not  see  Prudence  until  all  the 
townspeople  and  the  farmers  from  the  country 
round  about  are  seated  in  the  pews — not  until 
the  Dominie  appears  at  the  side  door  of  the 
church.  Then  the  broad  portal  of  the  Squire's 


144  A    SECOND-HAND   STORY. 

house  springs  open  and  the  Squire  marches 
forth,  looking  larger  than  ever  in  his  Sunday 
black.  There  is  a  sombre  grandeur  about  the 
very  silk  stockings  on  his  sturdy  old  legs.  Be 
hind  him  comes  Caesar — black  Caesar — his  wool 
as  white  as  the  Squire's  powdered  wig.  Caesar 
has  his  kit  in  his  hand  ;  he  plays  the  first  fiddle 
in  the  choir,  and  thereby  enjoys  a  proud  emi 
nence  above  all  the  other  negroes  in  the  neigh 
borhood.  Moreover,  he  has  been  a  freeman 
since  the  first  squire  died. 

Prudence  walks  by  her  father's  side.  The 
white  neckerchief  is  folded  over  her  breast ; 
her  dress  is  gray  ;  her  eyes  are  gray  and  dove- 
like.  She  holds  her  hymn-book  and  a  spray 
of  caraway  in  one  hand  ;  the  other  lifts  her 
clinging  skirt.  The  Squire  looks  straight 
ahead  as  he  walks,  and  Caesar  looks  straight  at 
the  Squire's  back.  But  Prudence's  soft  eyes 
wander  a  little.  Perhaps  she  is  not  sorry  that 
the  Squire  walks  slowly  ;  that  she  has  these  few 
moments  under  the  trees  and  among  the  birds 
before  the  great  bare  hollow  of  the  church 
swallows  her  up  for  the  two  long  hours  of 
service. 

As  Prudence  sits  in  her  pew  to-day — the 
front  pew  to  the  left  of  the  aisle  as  you  face 
the  Dominie — she  is  conscious  that  there  is 


A    SECOND-HAND    STORY.  145 

among  the  worshippers  a  concentration  of 
furtive  attention  upon  the  pew  behind  her — 
the  one  where  old  Jan  Onderdonck  used  to 
sit  until  he  went  to  finish  his  mortal  slumbers 
in  the  graveyard.  She  does  not  wonder  who 
may  be  there  ;  she  is  too  good  a  girl  for  that. 
But  she  cannot  help  remembering  that  she  will 
know  when  church  is  out.  And  now  she  rises 
to  sing  in  the  hymn,  and — she  must  have  been 
wondering,  in  spite  of  herself,  or  why  is  there 
such  a  guilty  start  and  thrill  under  the  white 
neckerchief  when  she  hears  the  strong  barytone 
voice  rise  resonant  behind  her?  The  little 
brown  hymn-book  trembles  in  her  hands  ;  she 
knows  she  is  a  wicked  girl,  and  yet — perhaps 
it  is  part  of  her  wickedness  that  she  cannot 
feel  properly  unhappy.  Nay,  she  knows  there 
is  a  jubilant  lilt  in  her  voice  as  it  joins  the 
strange  voice  and  sings : 

"  Happy  the  heart  where  graces  reign, 

Where  love  inspires  the  breast  ; 
Love  is  the  brightest  of  the  train, 
And  strengthens  all  the  rest." 

Her  father  turned  half  around  where  he 
stood,  as  a  pillar  of  the  church  turning  on  its 
base,  and  gazed  at  the  stranger.  Prudence 
could  not  turn ;  she  could  only  glance  shyly 
at  her  father.  He  had  his  Sunday  face  on, 


146  A    SECOND-HAND   STORY. 

and  she  knew  that  he  would  not  relax  a  muscle 
of  it  until  he  had  shaken  hands  with  the 
Dominie  in  the  porch. 

I  do  not  know  what  else  Prudence  sang  that 
day  out  of  the  brown  hymn-book.  Perhaps  it 
was  "  The  Shortness  and  Misery  of  Life"  or 
"  The  World's  Three  Chief  Temptations"  or 
"  Corrupt  Nature  from  Adam"  or  "  The  Song 
of  Zackarias,  and  the  Message  of  John  the 
Baptist ; "  but  I  do  know  that,  as  she  was 
going  out  of  church,  Prudence  did  something 
she  had  never  done  since,  ten  years  before,  her 
father  put  her  dead  mother's  hymn-book  into 
her  small  hand  and  told  her  it  was  hers.  She 
left  it  lying  on  the  seat  behind  her.  It  did 
not  lie  there  long  ;  she  was  not  two  steps  down 
the  aisle  before  the  tall,  broad-shouldered 
young  man  in  the  pew  behind  had  pre 
sented  it  to  her  with  a  low  bow.  She  took  it 
with  a  frightened  courtesy,  and  went  down  the 
aisle,  her  heart  beating  hard.  Indeed,  now, 
there  was  no  doubt  about  it.  She  was  sinful, 
perverse,  and  wholly  unregenerate  to  the  last 
degree.  She  wondered  if  iniquity  so  possessed 
other  girls.  And  just  in  that  moment  when 
he  bowed  she  had  noticed  that  he  had  fine 
eyes,  and  that  he  wore  his  black  clothes  with 
an  air  of  distinction.  Of  what  use  was  it  to 


A    SECOND-HAND    STORY.  1 47 

go  to  church  at  all,  if  such  sinfulness  was   in 
grained  in  her  ? 

****** 

The  disturbed  dust  was  settling  down  on  the 
pulpit  cushion  once  more.  The  Dominie  and 
the  Squire  stood  in  front  of  the  church.  The 
Dominie  was  powdering  himself  with  snuff,  as 
he  always  did  after  a  hard  sermon,  and  waiting 
for  his  regular  invitation  to  dinner.  The 
Squire,  however,  was  not  as  prompt  as  usual 
to-day.  His  eyes  followed  a  broad-shouldered 
figure  in  black  clothes  of  foreign  cut,  that 
strolled  idly  through  the  square. 

"  Dr.  Kuypers,"  he  finally  demanded,  "  who 
is  that  young  man  ?" 

"  That,"  said  the  Dominie,  as  he  put  his 
snuff-box  in  his  pocket,  "  is  Rick  Onderdonck, 
or,  I  might  better  say,  Master  Richard  Onder 
donck,  the  son  of  our  old  friend  Jan  Onder 
donck,  now  at  rest.  He  has  been  these  four 
years  in  Germany,  where  he  has  learnt  a  pretty 
deal  of  Latin,  I  must  say  for  him." 

The  Squire  shook  his  head. 

"  A  godless  country  for  a  boy,"  he  said. 
"  I  hope  he  got  no  worse  than  Latin  there." 

"  Nay,  nay,"  said  the  Dominie,  indulgently; 
"  I  find  him  a  good  youth,  and  uncorrupted. 
He  came  home  but  yesterday,  and  stays  with 
me  till  his  father's  house  shall  be  aired.  He 


148  A    SECOND-HAND    STORY. 

will  work  the  old  farm,  he  says,  and  I  trust  his 
Latin  may  do  him  no  harm." 

Dr.  Kuypers  and  the  Squire  bowed  with 
solemn  courtesy.  "  I  shall  be  honored  with 
your  company  at  dinner,  and  with  that  of  Mr. 
Onderdonck."  Then  he  dropped  to  a  simple 
week-day  tone :  "  Four  years,  Dominie,  four 
years,  is  it,  since  you  and  I  and  Jan  Onder 
donck  sat  at  dinner  together?  Yes,  bring  the 
lad." 

And  Prudence,  during  this  conversation, 
stood  at  her  father's  elbow  and  said  nothing  at 
all,  as  was  decorous  in  a  young  girl. 

Dr.  Kuypers  was  a  terrible  man  in  the  pul 
pit,  and  a  kind-hearted  and  merry  man  out  of 
it.  The  Sunday  dinners  in  the  great  brick 
house  were  always  the  brighter  for  his  coming; 
and  if  this  dinner  seemed  to  Prudence  the 
brightest  she  had  ever  known,  the  credit  must 
have  been  due  to  Dr.  Kuypers,  for  young  Mr. 
Onderdonck  was  certainly  most  quiet  and 
modest,  and  contented  himself  for  the  most 
part  with  giving  fitting  and  well-considered 
answers  to  the  questions  of  the  elder  gentle 
men  as  to  his  studies  and  the  state  of  Europe. 

The  dinner  came  to  an  end  long  before  Pru 
dence  wished  it.  And  yet,  at  the  end,  there 
was  a  new  and  delightful  experience  for  her, 
which  she  fled  to  her  room  to  dream  over. 


A    SECOND-HAND    STORY.  149 

She  was  only  nineteen ;  she  sat  at  the  head 
of  the  table,  but  it  was  only  as  she  had  sat 
since  she  was  a  little  girl,  just  learning  to 
pour  her  father's  coffee,  and  she  had  always 
been  a  little  girl  to  the  Squire  and  the  Dominie. 
But  to-day,  when  she  rose  from  her  seat,  Mr. 
Onderdonck  rose  too,  and  hurried  to  open  the 
door  for  her,  and  bowed  low  as  she  went 
out — and,  O  wondrous  day  ! — as  if  this  were 
not  joy  enough,  she  saw  over  her  shoulder 
that  her  father  and  the  Dominie  rose  too, 
and  stood  until  the  door  had  closed  behind 
her. 

Mr.  Rick  Onderdonck  was  modest  even  after 
Mistress  Prudence  had  left  the  room.  I  think 
that  the  deference  of  young  men  toward  their 
elders  will  not  die  out  in  this  world  while  old 
men  have  fair  daughters.  Mr.  Onderdonck 
took  his  portion  of  post-prandial  Schnapps, 
and  patiently  let  the  Squire  and  the  Dominie 
whet  their  rusty  Latin  on  his  brand-new  learn 
ing. 

****** 

Of  course,  Prudence  married  Rick  Onder 
donck.  That  was  written  from  the  beginning. 
Why  should  it  not  be  so  ?  What  had  the 
Squire  to  say  against  the  pretensions  of  young 
Rick  Onderdonck,  heritor  of  all  the  square 
miles  of  green  upland  that  had  once  belonged 


A    SECOND-HAND    STORY. 


to  old  Jan,  owner  of  seventy  slaves,  a  virtuous 
and  a  comely  man,  with  very  pretty  manners 
in  the  presence  of  his  elders?  Why,  nothing. 
He  might,  indeed,  have  said  that  the  house 
would  be  lonelier  than  he  had  thought  with 
out  Prudence  silently  flitting  here  and  there  ; 
but  it  was  not  the  Squire's  way  to  give  such 
reasons  as  that  :  and  so  the  young  people  were 
betrothed  early  in  the  spring  that  followed 
that  first  winter  when  the  neighborhood  re 
marked  that  Rick  Onderdonck  had  taken  to 
going  to  the  Squire's  house  more  than  his 
father  ever  did. 

I  don't  think  the  hymn-book  saw  much  of 
their  courtship,  although,  to  be  sure,  Mr. 
Onderdonck  probably  went  to  church  quite 
regularly  during  that  period  of  probation. 
But  she  sang  in  the  pew  in  front  and  he  in  the 
pew  behind  her,  and  the  most  that  the  hymn- 
book  could  know  of  what  either  of  them  felt 
was  that  her  fingers  tightened  on  its  smooth 
cover  whenever  she  heard  his  voice. 

But  she  probably  confided  some  thoughts  of 
her  heart  to  the  little  book  that  had  been 
her  mother's  when  she  came  to  pack  up  her 
"  things  "  a  day  or  two  before  the  wedding  —  I 
mean  her  personal  belongings  —  the  trifles  dear 
to  her  heart. 

For    days    the    ox-carts    had    creaked    and 


A    SECOND-HAND    STORY.  15 1 

groaned  up  the  rough  hill  roads  to  the  Onder- 
donck  farm-house,  leaving  great  loads  of  tables, 
and  chairs,  and  wardrobes,  and  chests  of  draw 
ers,  and  corded  boxes  that  held  hundreds  of 
yards  of  sweet-clover  scented  linen,  and  dresses 
made  by  modish  seamstresses  in  New  York, 
and  even  liberal  gifts  from  the  Squire's  store 
of  family  silver.  But  besides  such  things  as 
these,  there  is  always  the  pitiful  little  kit  that 
a  girl  makes  up  when  she  leaves  the  old  home- 
roof  and  takes  ship  on  the  great  sea  of  wife- 
hood. 

This  was  truly  a  kit,  done  up  in  the  red 
bandanna  handkerchief  that  old  Susan,  her 
nurse  (Caesar's  wife,  in  her  lifetime),  had  given 
her  long  ago.  For  that  matter,  all  the  poor 
treasures  had  been  given  to  her.  There  was 
this  little  hymn-book,  first  of  all,  and  the  gold 
chain  and  locket  with  her  mother's  miniature. 
Prudence  sometimes  looked  at  her  mother's 
portrait  and  wondered  if  those  gentle  blue  eyes 
had  not  looked  frightened  when  the  Squire 
proposed  to  marry  them.  Then  there  were  the 
emery-bag  and  scissors  she  had  got  at  school, 
for  working  the  neatest  sampler,  and  there 
was  the  sampler  to  speak  for  itself.  There  was 
the  ivory  ship  that  Ezra  Saunders  had  carved 
for  her — Ezra,  the  dry,  shrivelled  old  cobbler, 
from  some  strange,  far  place  in  New  England, 


IS2  A    SECOND-HAND   STOJ?Y. 

who  had  followed  the  sea  in  his  younger  days, 
and  whose  dark  back  room  in  the  cabin  by  the 
river-side  was  hung  with  sharks'  teeth  and 
sword-fish  spears,  and  ingeniously  carved  stay- 
bones,  with  a  smell  of  sandal-wood  about  them 
all,  wrapping  north  and  south  and  east  and 
west  in  one  atmo.-phere  of  spicy  oriental  mys 
tery.  There,  too,  was  her  collection  of  trinkets 
— an  enamelled  broach,  a  tall  tortoise-shell 
comb,  a  garnet  ring  or  two,  and  such  modest 
odds  and  ends  as  served  her  for  jewellery. 
And  all  of  these  she  did  up  in  the  red  ban 
danna  handkerchief,  with  a  guilty  feeling,  as 
though  she  were  deserting  her  girlish  life  after 
an  ungrateful  fashion,  and  maybe  the  brown 
book  was  sensible  of  some  poor  unformulated 
prayers  for  the  strange  future. 

And  so  it  came  about — for  the  contents  of 
the  handkerchief  went  up  to  her  new  home  the 
day  before  the  wedding — that  the  hymn-book 
was  not  in  church  when  she  was  married.  If 
it  had  been,  I  think  it  would  have  lain  open 
at  page  271,  as  old  Caesar's  bow  slid  softly 
over  the  strings,  and  the  congregation  sang: 

"  Thy  wife  shall  be  a  fruitful  vine, 
Thy  children,  round  thy  board, 
Each,  like  a  plant  of  honor,  shine, 
And  learn  to  fear  the  Lord. " 


A    SECOND-HAND    STORY.  153 

So  now  we  have  the  brown  hymn-book  at 
home  in  the  Onderdonck  homestead,  a  long, 
low  building,  the  lower  story  of  red  stone,  the 
upper  of  wood.  It  stood  high  up  on  the  hills, 
and  looked  down  over  grassy  slopes  of  meadow- 
land  across  the  tops  of  the  trees  in  the  town, 
to  the  clear,  shining  line  of  the  river,  that  ran 
in  pleasant  curves  as  far  as  the  eye  could  fol 
low  it. 

It  is  here  that  Prudence  begins  and  ends  her 
life.  For  the  best  of  life  begins  where  she 
began  in  the  old  farm-house,  and  what  end  the 
world  saw  she  made  there. 

There  life's  new  joys  and  life's  new  troubles 
began :  the  new  joy  of  two  living  one  life  to 
gether  ;  and  then  the  great  and  awful  trouble 
of  child-birth — the  worst  forgotten,  however, 
as  she  lay  in  Grandmother  Onderdonck's  four- 
poster  bed  and  heard  the  sharp,  small,  queru 
lous  wailing  from  the  next  room.  I  think  that 
was  of  a  Saturday  morning  in  May,  and  I  am 
sure  that  on  the  Sunday  she  sent  Rick  to 
church  to  receive  the  congratulations  of  the 
neighborhood,  and  lay  in  her  bed  the  while, 
and  perhaps  turned  over  a  page  or  two  of  the 
hymn-book,  finding  a  comfort  in  its  terror- 
fraught  pages  which  our  generation  might  seek 
in  vain.  Then  old  Mother  Sturt,  who  brought 
all  the  town's  babies  into  the  world,  took  the 


154  A    SECOND-HAND    STORY. 

book  away  from  her,  for  fear  it  might  hurt  her 
dear  eyes ;  and  she  lay  there  and  hummed  the 
familiar  airs  under  her  breath,  and  if  the  tune 
was  sweet  to  her  memory  it  mattered  little 
though  the  words  ran  : 

"  Should'st  thou  condemn  my  soul  to  hell, 

And  crush  my  flesh  to  dust, 
Heav'n  would  approve  thy  vengeance  well, 
And  earth  must  own  it  just." 

The  time  went  slowly,  lying  there  in  the 
white  waste  of  the  four-poster  bed  ;  but  it 
came  to  an  end  in  time,  and  there  was  a  day 
when  she  went  up  the  church  aisle  on  her  hus 
band's  arm,  just  after  the  sermon,  and  Dominie 
Kuypers  sprinkled  water  on  the  head  of  the  in 
fant,  conceived  in  sin  and  born  in  iniquity,  and 
totally  unconscious  of  it,  the  while  the  choir 
sang  : 

"  Thus  Lydia  sanctified  her  house, 
When  she  received  the  word  ; 
Thus  the  believing  jailer  gave 
His  household  to  the  Lord." 

There  were  other  children  after  that  boy, 
and  Prudence  found  her  days  well  filled  up 
with  the  little  duties  of  a  woman's  life — those 
little  duties  which  would  distress  women  less 
could  they  but  see  the  grand  total  and  esti 
mate  the  value  of  it.  Prudence  must  have 
had  some  blessed  comprehension  of  the  worth 


A    SECOND-HAND   STORY.  155 

of  a  woman's  work  who  does  her  duty  as  wife 
and  mother,wfor  I  can  see  her  going  about  her 
daily  tasks  with  a  sweet  and  placid  face,  and 
lifting  tender  welcoming  eyes  to  her  husband 
as  he  comes  home  at  sunset  from  some  far 
corner  of  the  farm — those  sweet  gray  eyes  that 
were  content,  only  a  little  while  ago,  with  the 
light  of  the  sun  on  the  trees  and  the  gay  face 
of  the  summer-clad  world. 

It  was  a  serious  face,  sometimes,  that  met 
her  look,  for  Rick  was  a  man  who  took  on  his 
broad  shoulders  some  share  of  the  world's 
burdens  beyond  his  necessary  stint.  They 
had  a  troublous  time  when  they  made  up  their 
minds  to  let  their  slaves  work  out  their  free 
dom.  It  was  some  years  before  Rick  regained 
his  popularity  among  the  neighbors;  he  had 
practically  manumitted  his  entire  holding  of 
slaves,  and  although  such  an  act  might  have 
been  forgiven  to  mere  benevolence,  it  was  a 
crime  against  the  community  when  it  was 
dictated  by  principle.  Rick  had  a  sad  scene 
with  the  old  Squire,  who  all  but  cursed  him 
for  his  foreign  atheistical  notions ;  and  even 
good  Dominie  Kuypers  looked  gravely  disap 
pointed.  They  did  not,  in  fact,  fully  restore 
Rick  to  favor  until  it  became  clear  beyond  a 
doubt  that  the  farm  was  paying  better  under 
a  system  of  free  labor  than  it  had  ever  paid 


156  A    SECOND-HAND   STORY. 

while  it  supported  a  horde  of  irresponsible 
slaves.  When  that  fact  was  proved  beyond  a 
doubt,  the  most  notoriously  mean  man  in  the 
county  ordered  his  slaves  to  work  out  their 
freedom  at  the  highest  market-price  ;  and,  after 
that,  the  curse  was  taken  off  Rick  and  Pru 
dence. 

*  *  •*  •»  •*  •* 

The  shutters  of  the  old  farm-house  are  closed. 
The  broad  spread  of  fields  is  empty  of  all  but 
waving  grain  and  nodding  corn.  The  farm 
hands  stand  about  the  kitchen  door,  looking 
strange  in  their  Sunday  clothes  of  black.  At 
the  front  door  stands  young  Jan  Onderdonck, 
a  shapely  boy  of  eighteen,  looking  out  on  the 
world  with  that  white,  blank  face  which  the 
first  sight  of  death  among  his  own  puts  on  a 
boy.  He  meets  the  neighbors  as  they  drive 
up  to  the  gate  in  swaying  carryalls  or  lumber 
ing  wagons,  and  goes  silently  before  them  to 
the  door.  They  go  in,  out  of  the  clear,  sum 
mer  sunshine,  leaving  the  slope  of  long,  un- 
mown  grass,  the  beds  of  bright  flowers,  the 
tremulous  green  beeches  behind  them,  into  the 
dim,  cool  front  sitting-room,  and  range  them 
selves  along  the  wall.  Friend  bows  to  friend, 
in  a  constrained  fashion,  and  here  and  there 
are  hushed  interchanges  of  speech.  "  She  is 
taking  it  hard,  poor  soul,"  they  say ;  "  but  so 


A    SECOND-HAND   STORY.  l$J 

quiet  and  still,  the  doctor  was  frightened  for 
her." 

Across  the  hall  he  lies,  in  the  room  opened 
only  for  company.  The  air  is  close  ;  the  shut 
ters  will  not  let  the  scent  of  the  rose-bushes 
enter.  His  calm  face  looks  up  to  the  cracked, 
whitewashed  ceiling  of  the  plain  old  house 
that  was  his  home  a  few  hours  ago.  How 
calm  it  is !  How  calm,  to  leave  behind  such  a 
void,  so  much  and  so  unconquerable  grief ! 
Yet,  would  we  have  the  shadow  and  impress 
of  our  sorrow  on  his  face  ?  Good  man,  good 
husband,  good  father,  he  is  gone.  And  this 
poor  face  that  lies  here  to  tell  us  of  him,  let 
us  be  thankful  that  it  smiles  calmly  as  our 
poor  bewildered  eyes  look  at  it  for  the  last 
time. 

The  darkest  room  in  all  the  dim,  closed 
house  is  where  Prudence  sits,  on  the  floor 
above.  There  is  a  child  at  each  side  of  her, 
and  when  her  hands  are  not  clasped  trembling 
in  her  lap,  they  move  to  touch  the  soft,  tear- 
wet  faces.  And  now  the  eldest  son  comes 
softly  into  the  room  and  slips  his  arm  about 
her,  and  a  quick  tremor  shakes  her,  and  she 
hears  the  voice  of  the  old  minister,  standing 
upon  the  stairs,  midway  between  the  dead  and 
the  living  half  of  one  existence,  speaking  the 
words  that  part  husband  and  wife  upon  this 


1 58  A    SECOND-HAND    STORY. 

earth.  There  is  a  silence,  and  then  the  voices 
of  the  singers  come  with  a  far-away  sound 
from  the  rooms  below.  One  of  the  children, 
with  a  child's  poor,  helpless  effort  to  serve, 
slips  the  book  into  her  hands.  She  cannot 
open  it ;  she  could  not  see  the  page  ;  she  does 
not  need  it.  She  knows  the  words  ;  only  two 
lines  come  new  to  her  ears — "  Nor  should  we 
wish  the  hours  more  slow,  to  keep  us  from  our 
love." 

****** 
It  has  been  dropping  light  showers  all  the 
afternoon ;  showers  that  have  caught  the  first 
swaths  of  the  cut  grass.  Then  there  has  been 
the  brief  glow  of  a  high-hung  rainbow,  and 
the  warm  sun  has  come  to  rest  a  few  minutes 
on  the  long  heaps  of  grass,  and  to  distil  from 
them  an  exquisite  attar  of  new-mown  hay. 
The  sun  is  behind  the  hills  now  ;  the  front  of 
the  old  farm-house  where  Prudence  is  sitting 
in  shade.  She  looks  across  her  flower-beds, 
down  the  long  slope  to  where,  beyond  town 
and  trees,  there  is  still  a  warm  light  on  the 
winding  Passaic,  that  goes,  presently,  creep 
ing  up  the  farther  hills,  and  last  of  all  resting 
on  the  white  houses  of  a  little  settlement  that 
perched  on  those  hills — how  many  years  ago? 
Prudence  forgets :  many  years  ago,  yet  long 
since  the  one  date  from  which  she  reckons  all 


A    SECOND-HAND    STORY.  159 

her  days.  Rick  never  saw  it.  The  woods 
were  there  when  he  died. 

For  thirty  years  Prudence  has  seen  the  sun 
rise  and  set  since  he  died.  Thirty  summers 
she  has  tended  the  garden  he  dug  for  her  in 
their  honeymoon.  The  house  he  left  empty 
is  still  home  to  her,  to  his  children,  and  to  his 
children's  children.  The  fires  have  long  gone 
out  in  the  house  where  she  was  born ;  she 
looks  now  over  the  smokeless  chimney;  but 
his  home  is  still  as  he  would  wish  to  find  it 
were  he  coming  home  this  evening  across  the 
sweet  fields. 

Prudence,  sitting  there,  sees  his  grandson 
coming  homeward  now.  She  knows  the  broad 
shoulders  and  the  springy  gait.  She  has 
always  called  the  boy  Richard,  though  every 
one  else  calls  him  Rick.  She  knows,  too,  the 
girlish  figure  by  his  side ;  she  knows  that  he 
will  go  past  the  gate  and  through  the  woods 
to  the  Van  Vorst  farm.  Yes,  on  he  goes, 
bending  his  tall  head  to  talk  with  Mary  Van 
Vorst. 

Prudence's  face  is  sweet  and  her  eyes  are 
patient  ;  but  who  shall  blame  her  if  the  long 
ing  of  her  heart  springs  up  and  knows  not 
day  or  years?  What  days  or  years  shall  touch 
that  immortal  youth?  Has  the  summer  grown 
old?  Has  the  green  of  the  world  grown  dull, 


160  A    SECOND-HAND   STORY. 

and  the  gold  of  the  sun  grown  dim  ?  He 
walked  with  her  then,  and  the  hay  smelt  as  it 
smells  to-day ;  the  twilight  air  grew  tender 
and  misty  about  them,  the  murmur  of  wood 
land  life  made  the  cool  darkness  shrill,  and  the 
young  stars  came  out  in  the  vague  blue  of  the 
sky. 

What  has  grown  old?  What  is  changed  in 
her  heart  that  it  should  not  cry  out  for  love 
and  joy?  Why  may  she  not  feel  his  strong 
arm  about  her  shoulders,  hear  his  voice  in  her 
ears?  Why  may  she  not  look  up  now  and  see 
his  face  bent  over  hers,  love  speaking  to  love 
in  their  eyes? 

A  small  brown  book  slips  from  her  hand  and 
falls  upon  the  ground  ;  but  she  does  not  need 
the  printed  page.  She  knows  the  hymn  by 
heart.  The  bassoon  and  the  fiddle  play  softly 
in  the  choir  of  the  old  church  ;  she  hears  them 
faintly,  for  her  heart  is  fluttering  ;  her  hands 
are  cold,  there  is  a  mist  of  tears  in  her  eyes  as 
she  looks  up  into  her  husband's  face,  standing 
before  the  altar. 

It  must  have  been  on  some  evening  such 
as  this  that  the  little  book  dropped  from 
Prudence's  hands  for  the  last  time.  For  un 
less  it  fell  there,  and  lay  among  the  flowers, 
and  the  flowers  were  untended  after  her 
death,  so  that  some  stranger  picked  it  up  and 


A    SECOND-HAND    STORY.  l6l 

took  it  away  as  a  thing  of  no  account,  I  can 
not  tell  why  her  children  let  their  mother's 
book  find  its  way  to  a  second-hand  book-shop. 
I  am  glad  that  in  the  end  it  did  not  fall  into 
the  hands  of  some  one  who  might  not  have 
known  her  story. 


MRS.  TOM'S  SPREE. 


""THERE  was  high  carnival  held  in  North- 
oak  one  breezy  August  day  some  twenty 
odd  years  ago,  in  a  time  when  the  weather 
seems  to  me,  as  I  look  back  on  it,  much  more 
genially  bracing  and  inspiriting  than  the  wea 
ther  we  have  nowadays.  I  am  sure  of  one 
thing :  we  have  no  better  days  now  than  that 
day,  none  when  the  breeze  blows  more  briskly, 
cool,  and  soft  than  it  blew  that  day  up  and 
down  the  rolling  hillsides  of  Northoak,  flutter 
ing  bright  ribbons  along  every  road  and  path. 

It  had  been  a  carnival  summer  for  Northoak 
— though,  to  be  sure,  the  revellers  had  very 
little  thought  that  they  were  bidding  farewell 
to  the  delights  of  the  world,  the  flesh,  and 
the  devil,  and  were  much  astounded  when  the 
penitential  day  arrived.  And  on  that  August 
morning  it  was  far  enough  off  yet,  and  all  they 
had  to  do  was  to  be  gay. 

Now,  Northoak  had  never  been  gay  before. 
Contented,  happy,  and  well-to-do  it  had  always 


MRS.    TOM'S   SPREE.  163 

been  ;  but  it  reached  its  high-water  mark  of 
festivity  each  year  with  the  regular  annual  lawn- 
party  (called  a  fete  champetre  by  those  who 
were  wise  in  such  things),  which  each  family 
among  the  landed  gentry  took  its  turn  at  giv 
ing.  One  year  it  was  the  Westfields,  another 
year  the  Lydeckers,  the  next  the  Turners,  and 
this  year  perhaps  the  Brinckerhoffs.  But  it 
was  always  pretty  much  the  same  lawn-party  ; 
and  while  it  was  sure  to  be  correct,  decorous, 
discreetly  liberal  in  material  gratifications,  and 
possibly  enjoyable,  it  could  not  fairly— it  would 
not  if  it  could — have  been  called  gay. 

The  gayety  of  that  long-ago  summer  came 
to  Northoak  from  outside,  and  was  rather  in 
Northoak  than  of  it.  And  perhaps  its  charac 
ter,  as  well  as  its  relation  to  Northoak  life,  may 
be  summed  up  in  the  statement  that  it  was 
hotel  gayety. 

For  the  curse  of  the  summer  hotel  had  come 
upon  Northoak,  and  Northoak  had  received  it 
with  dignified  submission,  accepting  it  perhaps 
as  a  punishment  for  the  sins  of  well-bred  pride 
and  polite  self-complacency. 

The  place  had  always  been  well  satisfied 
with  itself.  The  little  village  had  been  satis 
fied  to  be  a  little  village,  with  a  few  small 
shops  bidding  lazily  for  the  custom  of  the  peo 
ple  on  the  "estates."  The  estates  certainly 


164  MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE, 

could  look  contentedly  down  from  their  up 
lands  and  rejoice  in  their  well-cultivated  acres 
and  in  their  substantial  houses. 
'  These  houses — the  older  ones,  at  least — were 
dwellings  of  an  interesting  and  significant  type, 
much  in  favor  in  northern  New  York.  Their 
pattern  is  best  described  by  saying  that  they 
had  their  front  door  at  the  back.  The  front 
must  surely  have  been  the  end  with  the  great 
Doric  portico  looking  out  on  the  lawn.  Yet 
you  entered  at  the  other  end,  and  found  a  broad 
hall,  perhaps  with  two  reception-rooms.  If  the 
reception-rooms  were  there,  you  went  into  one 
or  the  other  before  you  were  announced  in  the 
large  drawing-room  beyond  the  hall.  And  if 
you  were  there  to  sell  rose-bushes,  or  to  collect 
money  for  the  heathen,  or  to  take  orders  for 
wine,  the  host  came  to  you  in  the  room  on  the 
right.  But  if  you  were  there  to  make  a  call, 
the  hostess  came  and  led  you  forth  from  the 
room  on  the  left  to  the  grander  chamber  that 
looked  out  upon  the  lawn. 

You  may  gather  from  this  that  Northoak 
had  an  aristocracy  and  something  of  a  feudal 
system.  It  had  both,  and  they  were  curiously 
well  developed  and  firmly  established  for  a 
downright  rural  community.  This  mainte 
nance  of  an  old-world  social  system  in  a  demo 
cratic  new-world  was  characteristic  of  the  elder 


MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE.  165 

and  larger  towns  of  the  State.  It  existed  here 
because  Northoak  was  originally  a  settlement 
of  what  are  called  retired  business  men,  who 
rented  their  New  York  houses  and  gardens 
seventy-five  or  eighty  years  ago  and  turned 
themselves  into  country  gentlemen.  Their 
grandsons  still  collected  rent  for  the  same 
property,  only  they  leased  factories  and  ware 
houses  ;  and  they  spent  thousands  where  their 
grandfathers  had  spent  hundreds,  to  live  just 
about  as  their  grandfathers  had  lived. 

This  state  of  affairs  may  seem  most  iniquitous 
to  some,  but  I  can  testify  that  when  I  first  went 
to  Northoak,  toward  the  end  of  my  boyhood, 
Northoak  great  and  Northoak  small  were  well 
pleased  with  themselves  and  with  each  other, 
and  that  the  stranger  soon  became  sincerely 
attached  to  both. 

I  was  but  a  summer  boarder  in  the  village ; 

o      * 

but  summer  boarders  were  rare  birds  in  those 
days,  and  if  they  were  birds  of  any  sort  of  so 
cial  plumage  they  were  courteously  entreated 
and  well  fed  by  the  hospitable  folk  of  the  es 
tates.  It  was  in  Northoak  that  I  wore  my  first 
dress-coat  to  my  first  grand  dinner,  and  I  re 
member  just  how  proud  and  just  how  uncom 
fortable  I  was.  I  would  have  died  for  the  aris 
tocracy  that  night — died  conscious  of  my  tails, 
but  loyal. 


1 66  MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE. 

But,  if  the  village  had  sinned,  retribution  had 
come  upon  it.  For  the  third  time  I  came  to 
Northoak  in  June,  and  lo  !  the  village  did  not 
know  itself,  and  indeed  was  no  more  a  village, 
but  a  nameless  suburb  of  a  summer  hotel. 

Some  sordid  scout  of  the  capitalists  had 
found  out  what  we  of  the  elect  few  had  found 
out  long  before — that  Northoak  was  pretty  and 
healthful.  And  so  he  desecrated  Northoak  in 
giving  it  over  to  the  populace.  Now  the  great 
hotel  stood  there,  glaring  in  its  paint  of  reddish- 
yellow  and  reddish-brown,  and  ten  splendid 
elms  had  been  done  to  death  that  it  might  rear 
its  hideous  mansard-roof  above  its  three-storied 
veranda.  Inside  of  it  there  were  white  kalso- 
mined  bedrooms,  a  great  "  general  office,"  and 
a  greater  dining-room,  with  frescoed  ceilings 
and  gorgeous  fittings  of  black  walnut  and  gilt, 
in  the  taste  of  what  has  been  aptly  called  "  the 
Jim  Fisk  era."  Then  there  were  "  French 
bronze  "  chandeliers  that  were  neither  French 
nor  bronze,  puffed  upholstery  of  blue  and  yel 
low  satin,  carpets  where  gigantic  flowers  spread 
luxuriously  over  a  white  ground,  walls  covered 
with  velvet  paper — the  hotel  had  every  attrac 
tion  that  went  to  make  up  elegance  and  com 
pleteness  in  those  happy  days  when  we  knew 
no  better. 

The  elegance  had   spread  to  the  poor  little 


MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE.  l6/ 

village.  The  grocery  was  an  emporium  ;  the 
thread-and-needle  shop  was  a  bazar — with  only 
two  as.  The  honest  old  village  inn  was  gone, 
with  its  innocent  "  Philadelphia  and  XXX  ales," 
and  in  its  place  was  a  gaudily  painted  frame 
building,  of  which  the  first  floor  was  a  sample- 
room.  Above  the  sample-room,  reached  by  a 
side  stairway,  was  a  mysterious  apartment  into 
which  men  entered  at  all  hours  of  the  night,  and 
whence  they  emerged,  as  a  rule,  at  about  five  or 
six  in  the  morning.  The  unceasing  click  of  the 
roulette-ball,  clearly  audible  on  the  street  below, 
announced  that  a  "  quiet  little  game  "  was  going 
on  in  the  "  club-house." 

These  things  changed  the  face  of  the  town, 
but  the  people  brought  a  greater  change.  It 
was  an  early  year  in  that  series  of  years  which 
linked  the  close  of  the  war  to  the  panic  of  1873 
— a  year,  like  its  fellows,  of  general  extrava 
gance  and  ostentation.  Thousands  of  peo 
ple  were  rich  who  had  never  expected  to  be. 
Shoddy  had  stood  the  good  fairy  to  some  of 
them  ;  others  had  found  wealth  in  government 
contracts,  in  stock  speculation,  in  the  spouting 
of  petroleum  wells.  Now,  when  each  of  these 
suddenly  acknowledged  children  of  wealth  had 
built  his  grand  house,  furnished  and  pictured  it, 
so  to  speak,  and  had  made  his  trip  to  Paris  and 
seen  something  of  the  glory  of  the  third  Napo- 


1 68  MRS.    TOM'S   SPREE. 

Icon  and  Baron  Haussmann,  he  had  made  up  his 
mind  to  live  luxuriously,  and  had  to  face  the 
problem  of  ways  and  means.  Luxury  there 
was  to  be  had,  but  it  was  such  luxury  as  min 
istered  to  the  quiet,  conservative,  and  strictly 
private  and  esoteric  pleasures  of  a  limited  and 
exclusive  class.  The  new-made  millionnaire 
wanted  something  that  showed  for  more  in  the 
shop-window.  He  found  plenty  of  people  to 
aid  him  in  his  search.  The  summer  hotel 
sprang  into  existence  to  relieve  him  of  all 
trouble  for  three  months  in  the  year.  The 
Parisian  Optra  bouffe  and  the  British  burlesque 
came  across  the  ocean  to  give  a  tone  of  sophis 
ticated  frivolity  to  the  freshly  formed  society 
in  which  he  found  himself.  He  accustomed 
his  palate  to  the  taste  of  champagne  It  was 
not  long  before  his  highest  ethical  aspirations 
were  satisfied. 

And  here  he  was,  holding  high  carnival  in 
dazzled  Northoak.  He  had  brought  his  train 
with  him.  There  were  people  from  Keokuk 
and  Peoria,  people  from  Cynthiana,  from 
Omaha,  from  San  Francisco,  from  Petrolia, 
and  from  Des  Moines.  "  Why,  my  dear,"  said 
one  scandalized  old  lady  of  Northoak,  "  I  really 
never  supposed  there  were  such  places,  except 
on  the  map,  you  know."  There  were  gentle 
men  in  velvet  smoking-jackets,  gentlemen  in 


MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE.  169 

baggy  knickerbockers,  gentlemen  with  long 
blond  whiskers,  and  gentlemen  who  affected 
smoking-caps.  There  were  ladies  in  silks  and 
ladies  in  satin,  and  a  great  many  .of  them  culti 
vated  a  supposed  resemblance  to  the  Empress 
Eugenie,  while  still  more  were  modelled  upon 
the  pattern  of  the  "  girl  of  the  period."  It  was 
what  was  known  as  a  "  fast  crowd,"  and  about 
the  most  of  its  members  there  was  nothing 
worse  than  the  exuberant  folly  born  of  sudden 
luxury.  They  were  gay  birds  of  opulence, 
and  they  wanted  to  spread  their  wings  and 
toss  and  tumble  in  the  soft  summer  air. 
And  if  some  birds  of  prey  slipped  in  among 
them,  who  was  to  blame?  The  hotel-keepers 
of  the  day  were  not  so  wise  in  the  matter  of 
feathers  as  our  experienced  landlords  of  this 
present  year  of  grace. 

***** 
On  this  August  day  of  which  I  speak,  the 
hotellites  had  some  merrymaking  afoot  which 
awakened  interest  even  among  the  people  of 
the  estates.  Between  the  large  contingent 
from  the  West  and  Southwest,  and  the  minor 
ity  from  the  Eastern  and  Middle  States,  there 
was  a  certain  rivalry  in  all  things,  and  each 
side  had  its  leaders  and  champions.  Two  of 
these  rivals  (among  the  younger  sets)  were 
Jack  Mowatt  of  New  York,  and  Clayton  Adri- 


I/O  MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE. 

ance  of  Kentucky.  These  young  men  danced 
equally  well,  they  played  about  the  same  game 
of  billiards,  each  was  past-master  at  croquet, 
and  each  could 

"  Urge  toward  the  table's  centre, 
With  unerring  hand,  the  squail." 

(Squails  and  croquet !  O  gilded  youth,  shall 
aureate  adolescence  of  1910  smile  thus  at  your 
tennis;  at  your  exceeding  skill  with  a  little 
foolish  round  puzzle  which  has  amused  you 
much  of  late?)  In  these  accomplishments 
there  was  nothing  to  choose  between  them  ; 
but  in  the  matter  of  horsemanship,  it  seemed, 
they  were  unwilling  to  divide  honors. 

Other  young  men  there  were,  also,  who  chal 
lenged  their  supremacy.  To-day,  therefore,  a 
race,  a  wonderful  race  of  twenty  miles,  was  to 
be  run,  in  four-mile  heats,  on  the  track  of  the 
old  county-fair  grounds.  It  was  an  absurd 
contest — cruel  on  the  country  horses  which 
had  to  be  hired  to  supply  four  out  of  the  five 
relays  for  each  rider,  and  it  was  no  fair  test  of 
the  horsemanship  of  the  two  youths.  Adriance 
was  beyond  doubt  the  more  skilful  and  grace 
ful  horseman  ;  but  in  a  match  like  this  he  stood 
small  chance  against  the  superior  wind  and 
strength  of  his  lithe,  wiry,  deep-chested  antag 
onist,  who  had  pulled  in  three  college  races, 
and  who  outclassed  him  in  size  and  weight. 


MRS.    70M'S  SPREE.  \7\ 

However,  it  was  an  opportunity  for  fun,  for 
excitement,  for  showing  of  pretty  gowns,  bet 
ting  of  gloves  and  champagne  and  bon-bons 
and  cigars.  The  hotellites  turned  out,  one  and 
all.  Their  landaulets  and  barouches  and  pony 
phaetons  whirled  pretty  girls  along  the  dusty 
highways,  and  all  the  primary  colors  flashed  in 
the  sun.  Even  the  hill  people  came.  A  horse 
race  aroused  every  true  American  among  them. 

I  trudged  along  the  road,  happy  enough, 
yet  longing  for  an  invitation  to  ride  beside  the 
least  of  those  pretty  girls.  I  knew  the  hotel 
people,  after  a  fashion  ;  I  was  kindly  permitted 
to  hang  on  the  outer  edge  of  their  grandeur. 
Jack  Mowatt,  who  was  always  good-hearted, 
now  and  then  deigned  to  patronize  me — I  was 
only  three  years  his  junior.  I  even  had  a  love- 
affair,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  with  the  youngest 
daughter  of  a  family  of  eight  girls.  She  was 
waiting  for  her  two  elder  sisters  to  marry,  and 
she  condescendingly  practised  upon  me  while 
she  waited  for  her  mother  to  bring  her  out. 
But  none  of  my  new  friends  bade  me  mount 
with  them.  It  was  the  good  old  aristocracy 
that  took  pity  upon  me.  Tom  Turner's  dull, 
creaky  voice  hailed  me: 

"  Hi,  young  man  !  going  to  the  race  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"Jump  in!" 


\72  MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE. 

Mr.  Tom  Turner  never  wasted  words — his 
vocabulary  did  not  allow  of  extravagance.  I 
climbed  into  his  "two-seater,"  and  sat  behind, 
talking  to  Mrs.  Tom,  who  shared  the  front  seat 
with  her  husband.  She  had  to  look  over  her 
shoulder  as  we  conversed,  and  she  paid  my 
budding  manhood  the  tribute  of  a  shy  blush. 
She  called  me  "  Mr.,"  too ;  and  I  was  proud 
and  happy  as  I  sat  there  talking  to  her  and 
studying  her  as  only  a  hobbledehoy  can  study 
a  young  woman. 

Every  boy  goes  through  this  time  of  stand 
ing  outside  the  world  of  grown  women  and 
studying  them.  A  pretty  face  opens  to  him  a 
very  treasure-house  of  speculation,  and  even 
a  plain  girl  is  worth  critical  examination  if  the 
faintest  nimbus  of  romance  hang  around  her 
head — if  it  be  possible  to  imagine  her  loved 
and  loving. 

Mrs.  Tom  was  undeniably  plain.  Her  fea 
tures  were  sharp,  and  somewhat  large.  Her 
hair  and  eyes  were  pale — no  other  word  sug 
gests  their  faded,  neutral  dulness  of  tint.  Her 
teeth  were  white  and  regular,  but  sharply 
prominent.  She  was  well  proportioned,  yet  her 
figure  had  the  awkward  lines  of  immaturity. 

And  yet  there  was  nothing  about  her  honest 
plainness  to  suggest  that  pitiless  question : 
"  Why  did  he  marry  her?  "  Any  man  might 


MRS     TOM'S  SPREE.  173 

have  married  Mrs.  Tom,  for  any  one  of  a  dozen 
good  reasons,  without  even  endangering  his 
reputation  for  good  taste.  Mrs.  Tom's  face 
was  kind,  and  it  had  a  simple,  youthful  whole- 
someness  about  it  that  must  have  been  almost 
a  positive  charm,  so  pleasant  does  it  seem  to 
my  memory  after  all  these  years.  And  she 
certainly  had  one  positive  charm,  less  subtle, 
yet  less  easy  to  tell  of  in  fitting  words.  Clean 
liness  is  an  attribute  that  we  predicate  of  all 
decent  and  lovable  folk,  yet  there  are  persons 
whose  cleanliness  is  offensive,  and  there  are 
others  whose  cleanliness  is  so  near  to  godliness 
as  to  be  altogether  lovable.  Mrs.  Tom  carried 
with  her  an  atmosphere  of  material  as  well  as 
moral  purity  that  absolutely  radiated  a  sweet 
domesticity.  Her  fresh,  soft  skin  was  not 
brilliant ;  but  it  became  her,  it  was  character 
istic  ;  it  was  pleasant  to  the  eye — part  of  a 
harmonious  whole.  For  Mrs.  Tom's  soft  gray 
and  brown  raiment  helped  to  carry  out  the 
idea  of  her  that  you  got  from  her  face.  On 
this  day,  I  remember,  she  wore  a  gray  gown 
with  a  lawn  kerchief  at  her  neck — not  at  all  in 
the  fashion  of  the  day,  but  quite  in  the  eternal 
fashion  of  good  taste  and  fitness. 

We  passed  through  the  gates  of  the  fair 
grounds  and  drove  to  a  point  on  the  back- 
stretch  of  the  track,  from  which  we  could  see 


1/4  MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE. 

the  bright  ribbon  of  blue  that  already  hung 
between  the  judges'  little  signal-tower  and  the 
grand  stand  opposite.  When  I  looked  upon 
the  grand  stand  I  stifled  another  wish  that 
the  world  of  fashion  might  remember  me.  I 
had  seen  that  bleak,  roofless  structure  before, 
black  with  country-folk  in  their  holiday  attire  ; 
bat  oh,  how  changed  was  it  to-day  !  A  sea,  a 
multicolored  sea  of  parasols  covered  it,  and  the 
bright  silken  domes  bobbed  up  and  down  over 
pretty  heads  in  a  way  that  seemed  madden 
ingly  vivacious  and  engaging  to  a  half-grown 
boy  whose  lot  was  cast,  for  the  hour,  with  emi 
nent  but  uninteresting  respectability.  How 
ever,  I  was  in  for  it  where  I  was,  and,  having 
been  early  instructed  in  a  long  antiquated  code 
of  manners  that  forbade  me  to  trample  my 
elders  under  foot,  I  did  my  best  to  make  my 
self  agreeable  to  my  hosts,  and  found  some  re 
ward  therein.  It  was  something  to  know  the 
names  of  all  the  riders,  and  to  be  able  to  dis 
play  that  proud  knowledge. 

"That's  Jack  Mowatt  there,  mounting  the 
bay  with  a  star.  Adriance  is  the  thin  fellow 
with  the  chestnut.  The  little  chap  on  the  big 
gray  horse  is  De  Vere — I  think  he  used  to  be 
on  the  stage.  The  man  on  the  queer-looking 
buckskin — see!  that  yellowish  one — is  McAl- 
pine.  He  plays  billiards  with  his  fingers.  The 


MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE.  1 75 

other  one — I  think  his  name  is  Ferguson — he's 
on  his  own  horse;  he's  so  rich  he  doesn't  know 
what  to  do  with  his  money,  and  he's  got  three 
horses  here  ;  he  only  had  to  hire  two.  But  he 
can't  ride  much.  It's  between  Mowatt  and 
Adriance." 

"And  which  is  your  man?"  inquired  Mrs. 
Tom,  smiling. 

"  Mowatt,  of  course.  New  York  against 
Kentucky." 

"Then  he's  mine,"  said  Mrs.  Tom. 

As  she  spoke  the  bell  rang,  the  horses  started 
forward,  made  a  bad  start,  and  went  back. 
Then  came  another  bad  start,  and  then  they 
got  off,  on  the  worst  start  of  all  three,  with 
Mowatt  in  the  lead,  and  Adriance  badly  pock 
eted  by  De  Vere  and  McAlpine.  Jack  pushed 
his  horse  and  rode  like  a  madman.  He  was  a 
dozen  lengths  ahead  when  he  passed  us. 

"Ah!"  growled  Tom  Turner,  in  disgust: 
"  fool — he'll  never  last !  " 

Even  to  my  eyes  Jack  was  riding  foolishly. 
He  had  a  great,  heavy-built  colt,  strong  and 
willing  ;  but  the  cheers,  the  yelling,  and,  above 
all,  the  brutal  pace,  frightened  the  poor  beast, 
and  on  the  third  lap,  when  he  led  by  nearly  a 
mile,  he  began  to  go  wild. 

"  Bolt,  sure  !  "  said  Tom,  as  he  saw  the  leader 
come  into  the  back-stretch. 


I/6  MRS.    TOM'S   SPXEE. 

And  bolt  he  did,  heading  straight  for  us. 
We  stood  close  to  the  track,  with  no  rail  to  sep 
arate  us.  Turner  stood  nearest  the  course  ;  I 
was  next,  with  Mrs.  Tom  just  behind  me.  She 
was  nervously  twisting  her  handkerchief  in  both 
hands ;  for  she  had  taken  her  side  already,  and 
she  was  as  well  able  to  judge  of  the  chances  as 
any  man  on  the  ground. 

Then  came  as  quick  a  bit  of  work  as  I  ever 
saw.  The  big  horse  left  the  track,  stumbled 
on  the  turf,  and  came  down  on  his  knees,  Jack 
Mowatt  going  over  his  head.  Turner  had  the 
animal  by  the  bridle  and  brought  him  to  his 
feet  in  a  second,  quivering  and  panting,  but 
unhurt  save  for  a  scratch  or  two.  Jack,  who 
had  landed  lightly,  was  up  again  as  soon  as  his 
horse.  In  an  instant  his  foot  was  in  the  stirrup 
and  his  hand  on  the  crupper,  and  then  he 
stopped.  The  blood  from  a  sharp  cut  on  his 
forehead  was  trickling  into  his  eyes.  He  dashed 
it  out  with  his  left  hand,  and  then,  just  as  a 
look  of  despair  came  over  his  face,  Mrs.  Tom 
stepped  up  and  tied  her  white  handkerchief 
around  his  head,  tight  and  firm.  Her  face  was 
pale,  but  her  hands  were  steady,  and  the  blind 
ing  flow  was  stopped  before  any  one  except 
Jack  knew  what  she  was  doing. 

He  knew.  His  eyes  lighted  up ;  he  bent, 
caught  one  of  her  hands  in  his  free  hand,  kissed 


MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE.  1 77 

it,  and  swung  himself  into  the  saddle.  I  saw 
Mrs.  Tom's  white  face  flush  a  burning  red,  and 
then  I  turned  to  see  Jack  take  the  track  again, 
just  as  the  field  thundered  by  us,  Adriance  far 
ahead,  leading  by  many  lengths. 

I  am  not  going  to  tell  the  story  of  that  race. 
It  was  a  cruel  affair,  as  far  as  it  went,  for  they 
ran  only  three  heats.  Mowattwon.  He  took 
his  own  horse  for  the  next  relay,  and  nearly 
ruined  a  splendid  animal  in  four  miles  of  mad 
riding.  But  he  passed  the  field  as  if  they  stood 
still,  and  he  rode  Adriance  down  after  a  long 
and  brutal  struggle.  At  the  end  of  the  third 
heat,  when  he  led  the  Kentucky  boy  by  a  quar 
ter  of  a  mile,  and  the  poor  youngster  looked  as 
though  he  were  about  to  fall  off  his  horse,  the 
judges  stopped  the  race.  All  the  other  riders 
had  dropped  off  except  the  despised  Ferguson, 
who  was  sticking  to  it  a  mile  or  so  in  the  rear. 
Three  horses  had  been  spoiled  for  life,  and  the 
"sporting  blood"  of  the  judges  had  had  all  it 
could  endure. 

Adriance  was  badly  shaken  up.  He  was  out 
of  training  and  incapable  of  sustained  exertion. 
He  shook  Mowatt's  hand  and  tried  to  smile  as 
he  said : 

"  My  only  regret  is  that  you  weren't  born  in 
Kentucky." 

The  Grand  Stand  went  wild,  of  course,  and 


1/8  MRS.    TOM'S   SPREE. 

made  the  most  of  its  two  heroes,  and  even  of 
Ferguson,  who  had  shown  an  unexpected  pluck. 
Jack  Mowatt  was  the  hero  of  the  hour,  and  the 
women  fairly  flung  themselves  at  his  feet.  If 
it  had  not  been  Jack's  lot  in  life  to  bask  in 
women's  smiles,  his  head  might  have  been 
turned.  But  Jack  had  flirted  from  his  cradle 
up,  and  to  have  a  hundred  women  worshipping 
him  instead  of  one  was  an  experience  differing 
only  in  degree,  and  not  in  kind,  from  many 
which  he  had  enjoyed  in  the  brief  course  of  his 
youth. 

He  smiled  on  his  admirers  for  a  few  minutes, 
and  then  made  for  the  stable.  Half-way  there, 
as  if  a  sudden  thought  had  come  to  him,  he 
turned  and  came  up  the  course  to  our  group  on 
the  back-stretch.  Mrs.  Tom  flushed  red  once 
more  as  she  saw  him,  and  there  was  still  a  touch 
of  color  in  her  face  when  I  proudly  introduced 
the  hero,  and  he  began  to  express  his  gratitude 
in  Jack's  own  demonstrative  way.  He  said  no 
more  than  he  meant,  perhaps ;  but  he  said  a 
great  deal  more  than  was  necessary,  and  a  great 
deal  more,  I  have  no  doubt,  than  he  thought 
he  was  saying.  Mrs.  Tom  heard  him  for  the 
most  part  in  silence.  When  she  said  anything, 
it  was  with  a  fluttered,  nervous  brightness  that 
was  wholly  unlike  her  natural  manner.  Yet  it 
was  a  manner  natural  enough  under  the  circum- 


MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE.  1/9 

stances.  Nine  women  out  of  ten  would  have 
talked  in  just  that  tone.  There  was  nothing 
odd  about  the  tone,  except  that  it  was  Mrs. 
Tom  who  used  it. 

Mowatt  could  not  stay  long  ;  the  cut  on  his 
head  needed  dressing,  and  the  local  doctor  was 
already  beckoning  him  toward  the  stables.  But 
before  he  bade  farewell  to  Mrs.  Tom,  I  could 
not  help  hearing  a  characteristic  speech  which 
he  made.  Turner  and  I  were  tightening  buckles 
on  the  harness,  and  Mowatt  had  his  back  to  me 
as  he  said  : 

"  I'll  send  your  handkerchief  back  to-mor 
row,  Mrs.  Turner.  I  wish — I  wish  I  might 
keep  it,  as  a  memento — of  the  race.  But  I 
suppose 

I  did  not  hear  what  Mrs.  Tom  said  in  reply. 
But  as  we  drove  home  I  learned  that  Tom  had 
agreed  to  take  her  to  the  "  hop  "  at  the  hotel 
that  evening;  and  all  the  way  that  I  went  with 
them  Mrs.  Tom  looked  back  to  talk  to  me  in 
that  same  softly  fluttered  way,  asking  questions 
and  running  on  without  waiting  for  answers. 
I  noticed  that  the  flush  was  still  on  her 
cheeks. 

"  I've  never  been  to  a  hop  at  the  hotel,"  she 
said.  "  I  suppose  it's  quite  festive  beside  our 
dull  doings  here.  I  haven't  an  idea  what  to 
wear.  What  do  the  ladies  generally  wear? 


180  MRS.    TOM'S    SPREE. 

Oh,  but  there !  what  do  you  know  about  such 
things?  You  don't  notice  ladies'  dresses,  do 
you  ?  Men  never  do.  But  it  must  be  lovely 
to  dance  to  that  splendid  band  !  Do  you  dance  ? 
If  you  do,  you  mustn't  forget  your  country 
friends—  "  and  soon,  while  Tom  drove  stolidly 
along,  and  I  watched  this  poor  little  gray  pigeon 
preen  her  wings — watched  her  with  all  a  boy's 
cruel  but  observant  interest. 

And  here,  as  the  conversation  which  I  had 
overheard  a  few  minutes  before  was  the  begin 
ning  of  a  bad  business,  for  which  Jack  Mowatt 
has  been  often  blamed,  let  me  say  a  word  for 
that  unlucky  butterfly.  I  knew  him  well  in 
after  years,  and  knew  him  for  a  perfectly  harm 
less  and  highly  ornamental  insect.  Flirting  was 
as  much  a  part  of  his  daily  existence  as  eating, 
drinking,  or  sleeping — if  you  can  call  that  flirta 
tion  which  was  merely  the  exchange  of  the  most 
obvious  flattery  and  innocently  exaggerated 
deference  for  that  delightfully  familiar  sort  of 
petting  which  women  are  always  ready  to  lavish 
on  the  man  who  is  not  to  be  taken  seriously. 
And  only  two  women  that  I  have  heard  of  ever 
took  Jack  seriously.  One  was  Mrs.  Tom — the 
other  was  the  girl  who  finally  married  him. 
And  it  was  characteristic  of  this  graceful  and 
voluble  woman-worshipper,  that,  when  his  time 
came,  and  he  was  really  in  love,  he  lost  his 


MRS.    TOM'S  SPXEE.  l8l 

tongue  and  his  wits,  and  had  to  be  dragged 
through  his  courtship  and  up  to  the  speaking- 
point  like  any  country  oaf. 

So  I  think  I  may  fairly  say  that  when  Jack 
kissed  Mrs.  Tom's  hand  and  begged  her  hand 
kerchief,  he  did  no  more  than  he  would  have 
done  had  it  been  his  own  grandmother,  and 
meant  no  more  ill.  It  was  Jack's  way  of  being 
decently  and  respectfully  civil  to  a  woman. 

It  was  late  that  night  when  I  laid  aside  my 
books  and  hurried  eagerly  over  to  the  hotel. 
The  distant  music  had  twisted  up  my  trigo 
nometry  for  three  hours,  and  the  figures  of  the 
lanciers  and  the  quadrille  had  wellnigh  driven 
another  sort  of  figures  out  of  my  young  head. 
However,  young  conscience  was  somehow  sat 
isfied  when  I  entered  the  great  dining-room, 
turned  into  a  ball-room  by  the  presence  of  two 
fiddlers  and  a  double  bass  and  a  clarinet,  sup 
porting  the  lean  hotel  "  accompanist  "  in  the 
piano-corner.  Yet  I  had  not  been  three  min 
utes  in  that  scene  of  revelry  before  I  wished 
that  I  had  not  left  my  shabby  calf-covered 
books,  my  little  white-cloth-topped  table,  my 
poor  kerosene  lamp,  whereon  the  moths  and 
mosquitoes  stuck  fast  in  the  oil,  looking  like 
Christian  martyrs  after  the  festival  of  human 
torches. 

Tom  Turner  was  the  first  person  I  met.     He 


1 82  MRS.     TOM'S   SPREE. 

was  leaving  the  ball-room,  headed  for  the  bil 
liard-room.  He  only  nodded  when  he  saw 
me. 

"Where  is  Mrs.  Turner?"  I  asked. 

"  In  there,"  he  said,  and  went  on  his  way. 
He  was  always  taciturn,  impassive,  chary  of 
his  words;  but  he  spoke  with  such  a  sullen 
shortness  that — boy-like — I  fancied  I  had  done 
something  to  offend  him. 

I  went  "  in  there."  It  was  a  little  parlor  or 
drawing-room  opening  from  the  large  hall. 
There  sat  Jack  Mowatt  on  a  yellow  and  blue 
satin  divan — a  hideous  round  structure,  such 
as  you  still  may  see  in  the  abodes  of  the  aris 
tocracy,  on  our  realistic  modern  stage.  He 
was  doing  the  wounded  hero  to  perfection,  his 
manly  beauty  not  wholly  marred  by  a  narrow 
strip  of  sticking-plaster  running  half-way  across 
his  forehead.  In  front  of  him  half  a  dozen 
women  had  drawn  up  their  chairs  to  form  a 
circle  of  worship.  There  were  four  young 
girls  not  yet  out  of  the  age  of  gigglehood,  a 
black-browed,  aquiline-nosed,  handsome  bird 
of  prey  from  San  Francisco,  and  Mrs.  Tom. 

Mrs.  Tom  in  a  white  silk  dress,  with  a  girlish 
pink  sash,  and  with  the  pinkest  of  pink  roses 
in  her  poor  colorless  hair;  Mrs.  Tom  talking 
loud  and  fast,  and  talking  nonsense — that  is 
what  Mrs.  Tom's  young  friend  heard  and  saw 


MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE.  183 

as  he  stood  stupefied  in  the  door-way  of  the 
room  with  the  yellow  and  blue  satin  divan. 

"  So  like  the  knights  and  cavaliers  of  old  !  " 
this  young  man  heard  her  say.  "  Didn't  you 
feel  like  a  knight,  Mr.  Mowatt  ?  " 

"Didn't  Mr.  Mowatt  act  like  a  knight?" 
queried  the  Bird  of  Prey,  dryly,  and  the  four 
girls  giggled. 

"  I  should  have  been  a  poor  knight  without 
my  rescuing  lady,"  said  Jack,  and  the  girls 
giggled  again.  Mrs.  Tom  heard  them  not. 

"  Mr.  Mowatt  was  the  knightliest  of  knights," 
she  said,  laughing  shrilly.  Her  eyes  shone; 
there  was  a  hot  color  in  her  high  cheek 
bones. 

I  withdrew  softly;  no  one  had  noticed  my 
presence.  They  were  all  too  intent  on  draw 
ing  out  poor  Mrs.  Tom — all  except  Jack,  who 
was  frowning  furtively  at  the  beauty  with  the 
aquiline  nose. 

I  was  chagrined  and  humiliated.  The  reck 
less  jollity,  the  crude  luxury  of  the  hotel  life 
had  attracted  me ;  but  my  friends  were  the 
good,  quiet  gentlefolk  on  the  hills,  and  to  see 
one  of  them  made  the  dupe  and  the  butt  of 
these  half-breed  savages  wounded  my  juvenile 
loyalty.  I  slipped  out  of  the  ball-room,  and  I 
thought  that  the  whole  pleasure  of  the  evening 
was  lost  for  me,  until  I  stumbled  across  my 


1 84  MRS.    TOM'S   SPREE. 

own  immature  charmer,  the  youngest  of  the 
eight,  sulking  in  a  dark  corner  of  the  veranda, 
where  she  could  look  in  at  the  gayety  which 
she  might  not  share  with  her  seven  elders. 

She  confided  to  me  that  she  considered  her 
exclusion  "  real  mean  " — she  said  "  reel " — and 
I  sat  down  by  her  side  and  consoled  her  in  the 
soft  summer  night.  By  and  by  I  forgot  Mrs. 
Tom  (and  myself,  wellnigh),  and  I  received  a 
painful  shock  when  Maude  Addie  said: 

"They're  dancing  the  Caledonian  quadrille! 
Who  is  that  queer  creature  dancing  all  out  of 
time?" 

I  knew  before  I  looked  in  the  window.  It 
was  Mrs.  Tom,  and  Jack  Mowatt  was  her  part 
ner.  She  was  dancing  furiously,  awkwardly, 
and  quite  out  of  time.  Some  of  the  younger 
girls  were  imitating  her  angular  movements 
to  her  very  face ;  but  she  danced  on,  smiling, 
radiant,  unconscious  of  everything  but  the 
strange  elation  that  had  taken  possession  of 
her.  By  the  end  the  dance  had  degenerated 
almost  to  a  romp  ;  but  Mrs.  Tom  smiled  on, 
gayly,  triumphantly.  A  minute  later  she  passed 
us  on  Jack's  arm. 

"  Upon  my  word,  Mrs.  Turner,"  I  heard  him 
say,  "  there's  no  one  I  ever  knew  who  could 
dance  like  you." 

"Oh,  you  flatterer!"  said  the  poor  woman, 


MRS.     TOM'S  SPREE.  185 

looking  up  at  him  with  blind  gratitude  in  her 
face. 

The  next  morning  Mrs.  Tom,  driving  down 
to  the  village,  as  was  her  custom,  stopped  at 
the  hotel  to  see  the  Bird  of  Prey,  or  some  other 
of  her  new  friends,  and  incidentally  carried  Jack 
off  for  a  drive.  The  day  after,  Turner  went 
fishing,  and  Mrs.  Tom  passed  most  of  the  day 
with  the  hotellites.  The  third  day  it  was  much 
the  same ;  on  the  fourth,  I  was  invited  to  din 
ner  at  the  Brinckerhoffs,  who  were  Turner's 
first-cousins,  and  after  dinner  old  Mrs.  Brinck- 
erhoff  took  me  aside  and  asked  me  plumply  if 
it  was  true  that  Tom's  wife  was  associating  so 
freely  with  "those  people."  I  tried  to  fib,  but 
the  occasion  was  not  happy  for  mendacity. 

However,  it  mattered  little.  Mrs.  Tom's 
infatuation  for  her  new  society  was  beyond  all 
concealing,  and  the  nature  of  it  was  clear 
enough.  She  was  fighting  for  her  woman's 
birthright  of  admiration,  romance,  and  wor 
ship.  For  the  first  time  it  had  come  into  her 
head  that  she  might  be  as  these  other  women 
— courted,  petted,  pelted  with  rose-leaf  flat 
teries;  that  she,  too,  might  have  her  adorers; 
might  drink  the  champagne  of  this  sparkling, 
glorious  life.  A  week  before  she  had  been 
contented,  in  her  wholesome  dulness,  with  the 


1 86  MXS.    TOM'S  SPREE. 

husband  whom  she  had  married  as  a  matter  of 
course,  who  loved  her  (as  she  loved  him)  yet 
had  never  made  love  to  her.  She  had  been 
contented  when  the  glass  told  her  that  her 
face  was  plain  :  the  thought  troubled  her  no 
more  than  the  thought  that  she  could  not  read 
Greek.  She  could  have  honestly  admired  a 
beautiful  woman,  just  as  she  might  have 
respected  a  Greek  scholar.  She  had  never 
longed  for  beauty:  it  went  for  little  in  her 
world — for  less  than  fair  birth  or  breeding,  and 
both  of  these  she  had.  It  was  natural  enough 
that  she  should  have  been  contented.  Do  you 
envy  the  splendid  colonel  whom  you  admire  as 
he  rides  at  the  head  of  his  regiment?  Do  you 
want  his  uniform  to  go  about  your  business  in  ? 
Do  you  want  his  mettlesome  great  horse,  that 
you  couldn't  ride  to  save  your  life  ?  Do  you 
want  even  his  glory,  bought  at  the  cost  of 
wounds  and  cares  and  privations?  Not  for  an 
instant.  Envy  of  him  will  never  keep  you 
awake  o'  nights.  But  join  his  regiment  as  the 
rawest  of  privates,  and  you  will  envy  every  rag 
of  gold  lace  on  that  man's  body.  So  it  was 
with  Mrs.  Tom.  A  man  had  kissed  her  hand, 
and  she  longed  for  beauty. 

Beauty  itself  she  must  have  known  was  be 
yond  her  reach.  But  that  she  could  be  in  the 
ranks  of  beauty,  be  one  of  the  women  who 


MAS.    TOM'S  SPREE.  l8/ 

charm  and  are  courted,  breathe  the  delicious 
incense  of  men's  adoration — this  had  been 
revealed  to  her  by  proof  indubitable.  Had 
not  the  very  paragon  of  women-worshippers 
kissed  her  hand  ?  Was  he  not  wearing  her 
handkerchief  in  his  waistcoat  ?  Cinderella  had 
come  to  the  court  of  the  king! 

It  was  a  mad  fancy  of  Mrs.  Tom's,  but  it 
was  born,  perhaps,  of  vague,  half-formulated, 
half-repressed  dreams  that  none  of  those  about 
her  knew  of,  and  it  was  fostered  by  a  most 
malicious  combination  of  circumstances.  Jack 
began  his  innocent  blandishments  in  good 
faith  ;  then  he  passed,  all  unsuspicious,  to  a 
dangerous  jest;  then  he  found  the  jest  broad 
ening  under  the  smiles  of  the  spectators,  and 
sought  a  way  out  of  it  by  turning  it  into  pal 
pable  burlesque — palpable,  he  found,  to  all 
save  the  woman  whose  head  he  had  turned — a 
woman  who  had  no  sense  of  humor,  and  who 
had  never  heard  of  the  possibility  of  raillery  so 
cruel  and  unchivalrous.  And  then,  foreseeing 
in  himself  a  red-handed  butcher  of  courtesy 
and  delicacy,  he  lost  his  head  and  took  to  his 
heels.  He  was  much  to  be  condemned — he 
was  condemned — -but  this  is  to  be  said  for  him, 
that  he  began  in  good  faith  and  went  wrong 
before  he  knew  it ;  and  that  the  management 
of  a  maniac,  when  that  maniac  is  a  woman 


1 88  MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE. 

insane  on  the  subject  of  her  own  charms,  is  a 
problem  that  might  prove  too  much  for  many 
an  older  man  of  the  world  than  this  poor  flib 
bertigibbet  of  twenty-one. 

His  solution  of  the  problem  was  simple.  On 
Friday' he  went  to  New  York — on  business,  he 
said.  He  was  to  be  back  by  Saturday  even 
ing.  Calypso  waited  for  him  Saturday,  Sun 
day,  and  Monday.  On  Tuesday  she  saw  his 
trunks  go  out  of  the  hotel,  marked  for  New 
York.  A  letter  to  one  of  his  friends  among 
the  men  conveyed  the  intelligence  that  he  was 
called  away  by  the  illness  of  a  relative. 

It  turned  out  to  be  no  solution  at  all.  He 
dealt  his  victim  a  cruel  blow,  but  did  not 
awaken  her  from  her  dream.  In  that  one 
week  Mrs.  Tom  had  heard  more  about  flirta 
tions  and  jiltings  and  transfers  of  affection 
generally  than  she  had  heard  in  all  her  previ 
ous  life.  She  had  even  met  one  ingenuous 
Southern  maid  who  was  habitually  engaged  to 
three  gentlemen  at  once.  She  accepted  this 
as  her  first  defeat  in  a  world  which  she  had 
already  learned  was  a  world  of  secret  but  un 
ceasing  strife.  She  smothered  her  humiliation, 
and  determined  to  go  on  with  the  fight. 

She  had  no  difficulty  in  carrying  on  her 
campaign.  She  was  a  rich  joke  for  the  hotel, 
in  more  senses  than  one.  The  harpy  contin- 


MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE.  189 

gent  had  already  discovered  that  she  was  well- 
to-do  in  her  own  right.  They  set  their  young 
men  to  "taking  turns  at  Mrs.  Tom,"  and  keep 
ing  her  supplied  with  all  the  flattering  atten 
tions  which  she  would  accept.  And,  by  the 
irony  of  fate,  she  found  a  genuine  adorer.  He 
was  a  sulky,  loutish  youth,  who  had  been 
brought  up  on  a  farm  until  he  came  into  the 
fortune  of  an  oil-well  uncle.  This  silent,  dull 
youngster,  half  a  dozen  years  her  junior,  fell 
honestly  in  love  with  her,  and  trailed  about 
after  her  like  an  ill-conditioned  poodle. 

A  lively  chase  Mrs.  Tom  led  him.  The  end 
of  that  second  week  found  her  in  the  fore 
front  of  all  the  hotel  gayety.  She  slept  at 
home ;  but  her  days  and  her  evenings  were 
passed  with  her  hotellites,  who  diverted  them 
selves  without  ceasing.  That  week  a  flash, 
fashionable  dressmaker  and  milliner  came  up 
from  New  York,  and  Mrs.  Tom  gave  orders  for 
dresses  that  made  the  eyes  shine  in  the  schem 
ing  heads  of  the  birds  of  prey.  The  dresses 
were  confected  with  great  rapidity  under  their 
directions,  and  such  marvels  of  gorgeous  bad 
taste  were  they  that,  even  in  that  day  of  loud 
things,  they  scandalized  the  most  advanced 
thought  of  the  hotel.  Mrs.  Tom,  clean  out  of 
her  modest  depth  in  color,  fairly  floundered 
in  reds  and  greens  and  blues  and  yellows ; 


1 90  MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE. 

and  let  me  remind  you  that  we  had  had  no 
Morris  in  those  days,  no  Burne-Jones  to  tell  us 
of  the  sin  of  primary  colors,  or  to  teach  us  the 
holiness  of  sage-green  and  the  sacredness  of 
old  gold  and  the  terra-cotta  family.  Mrs.  Tom 
made  ample  return  for  these  aids  to  fashion 
able  elegance.  She  lent  money  to  ladies  ex 
pecting  remittances,  and  showed  unwearying 
patience  in  awaiting  the  remittances ;  she  guar 
anteed  their  credit  at  the  dressmaker's ;  she 
gave  them  costly  presents ;  and  she  paid  her 
scot  on  all  the  excursions  and  picnic  parties: 
festivities  which  were  not  conducted  on  a 
modest  scale.  One  of  them  won  some  fame 
at  the  time.  Ferguson,  the  millionnaire  con 
tractor,  took  a  driving-party  of  twenty  to  the 
Mountain  House,  a  sporting  resort  some  ten 
miles  away,  up  in  the  hills;  and  when  they  sat 
down  to  supper  (cooked  by  a  New  York  chef, 
served  by  New  York  waiters)  each  lady  found 
her  napkin  rolled  up  in  a  gold  bracelet  set  with 
diamonds,  by  way  of  a  napkin-ring — a  dainty 
conceit  of  the  millionnaire's.  It  was  at  this 
supper,  I  believe,  that  they  induced  Mrs.  Tom 
to  sing  "  dites-lui,"  and  found  great  sport 
therein. 

But  what,  you  ask,  were  Mrs.  Tom's  rela 
tives  doing  all  this  while  ?  They  were  doing 
just  about  what  relatives  and  friends  usually  do 


MRS.    TOM'S   SPREE.  igi 

under  comparable  circumstances,  and  to  just 
about  as  much  purpose.  "  If  any  of  my  peo 
ple,"  we  have  all  said,  at  one  time  or  another, 
"  were  to  attempt  to  disgrace  the  family,  1 
should  do —  '  this,  that,  or  the  other.  But, 
when  the  time  comes,  we  all  of  us  find  that 
we  have  very  little  influence  in  the  matter, 
and  that  a  wilful  whippersnapper  of  eighteen, 
even,  can  peg  stones  at  the  family  escutcheon 
at  his  or  her  sweet  will.  How  about  your 
niece?  Didn't  she  run  away  and  join  the 
comic-opera  company,  as  she  said  she  would  ? 
How  about  my  cousin  ?  Didn't  he  marry  her, 
as  he  said  he  would?  You  and  I  are  connec 
tions  by  marriage,  and  we  wouldn't  be  if  we 
could  have  helped  it. 

And  what  was  Tom  Turner  doing?  For  the 
first  three  weeks  everybody  asked  that  ques 
tion.  By  the  fourth  week  everybody  knew 
that  he  was  drinking  hard.  He  found  himself 
in  a  situation  that  was  to  him  as  incompre 
hensibly  unreal  as  a  nightmare.  His  orderly, 
narrow  life  afforded  no  precedent  to  guide 
him.  He  knew  that  everything  was  wrong. 
He  knew  not  how  to  set  it  right.  He  remon 
strated,  he  quarrelled  with  her;  then  he  re 
lapsed  into  sullen  silence,  went  fishing  day 
after  day,  and  drank  more  than  was  good  for 
him. 


IQ2  MRS.    TOM'S   SPREE. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  his  meagre  vocabulary 
put  him  at  a  disadvantage.  He  could  tell  his 
wife  that  she  was  "  carrying  on,"  perhaps  that 
she  was  "  making  a  fool  of  herself ; "  but  be 
yond  this  he  probably  found  himself  unable  to 
characterize  her  conduct  without  saying  that 
it  was  "  not  respectable."  And  with  men  of 
Tom's  class  this  phrase  had  a  specific  meaning 
which  would  have  made  its  use  impossible. 
Tom  could  not  insult  his  wife  with  the  thought. 
Indeed,  through  all  the  time  of  her  folly,  no 
one  ever  dreamed  of  thinking  it  anything  worse 
than  folly,  pure  and  simple.  Even  the  hotel 
harpies  knew  better  than  to  misconstrue  her 
silliness.  The  most  cynical  and  reckless  of  the 
velveteen-coated  adventurers  would  not  have 
dared  to  enlighten  Mrs.  Tom's  ignorance ;  for 
whatever  black  depths  there  might  be  in  the 
world  where  she  moved,  they  were  carefully 
screened  from  her  eyes,  and  to  the  end  she  be 
lieved  that  the  "flirtations"  of  those  about 
her  were  as  innocent  as  her  own. 

As  to  Tom,  she  told  him  he  was  prejudiced, 
unkind,  and  selfish.  She  was  doing  no  harm, 
she  was  spending  her  own  money,  she  was 
having  a  good  time.  If  he  did  not  like  her 
friends,  well  and  good.  And  so  Tom  went  off 
to  his  fish  and  his  bottle,  and  Mrs.  Tom  went 
on  making  herself  the  laughing-stock  of  the 


MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE.  193 

hotel  and  the  horror  of  her  family.     The  peo 
ple  on  the  hills  wept  over  her,  and  the  children 
at  the  hotel  invented  a  pretty  pastime  which 
they  called  "  making  believe  be  Mrs.  Tom." 
****** 

One  morning  in  the  first  week  of  September 
I  stood  on  the  steps  of  the  hotel  gazing  at  Mr. 
Ferguson's  new  span  of  horses,  when  I  heard 
a  rustle  of  silks  by  my  side,  a  hand  was  laid 
lightly  on  my  shoulder,  and  a  high-pitched 
voice,  which  I  knew  in  spite  of  its  affected, 
drawling  tone,  said : 

"  Why,  dc-ar  boy  !  I  haven't  seen  you  in  an 
age ! " 

It  was  Mrs.  Tom,  or  what  passed  for  Mrs. 
Tom  in  these  days,  though  it  was  not  easy  to 
recognize  her  at  a  glance,  in  her  glaring  red 
and  green  shot-silk,  with  rouge  and  powder 
making  a  hectic  illumination  on  her  high-boned 
cheeks,  with  her  eyebrows  blackened,  her  hair 
dyed  a  strange  shiny  yellow,  and  with  diamonds 
stuck  and  hung  all  over  her — at  ten  o'clock  in 
the  morning. 

"  I  must  get  Ferguson,"  she  said,  "  to  let  me 
take  you  out  behind  these  grays.  You  shall 
handle  the  ribbons,  and  you  shall  smoke,  too, 
if  you  like.  Why  don't  you  let  us  see  some 
thing  of  you  ?  We  "  (she  dwelt  on  the  pronoun 
as  though  it  were  sweet  in  her  mouth)  "  would 
13 


194  MRS.    TOM'S   SPREE. 

like  to  have  you.  And  if  you  want  to  have  a 
good  time,  you  know,  you've  got  to  come  with 
us.  And  there's  just  the  chance  for  you,  dear 
boy!  Young  Mason,  who's  been  making  him 
self  so  sweet  to  Mrs.  Gilderoy — his  mother's 
just  taken  him  away.  She  was  afraid  !  "  (Mrs. 
Tom  tittered.)  "  Now's  your  chance.  Do  you 
know  Mrs.  Gilderoy?  No?  She's  from  New 
Orleans.  The  loveliest  woman  !  Yes,  you  posi 
tively  must  come  to  the  front." 

I  stumbled  out  some  confused  acknowledg 
ment.  I  felt  all  the  shame  that  she  should 
have  felt.  She  saw  my  blush,  and  smiled  com 
placently  as  she  moved  away.  She  took  it  for 
the  tribute  of  bashfulness. 

I  watched  her  as  she  walked  along  the  ve 
randa.  She  was  trying  to  imitate  a  carriage 
that  had  a  brief  vogue  at  that  time — the  body 
was  thrown  forward  of  the  hips,  involving  a 
general  distortion  of  various  anatomical  pro 
cesses. 

She  sat  down  among  her  friends,  who  were 
scarcely  less  besilked  and  bejewelled  than  she. 
I  looked  back  to  the  street,  and  saw  Tom 
Turner's  road-wagon  turning  in  from  the  High- 
kill  Falls  road. 

It  was  a  sight  common  enough  of  late. 
Turner  often  spent  the  night  at  Highkill, 
where  there  was  a  sportsmen's  tavern,  and 


MRS.     TOM'S   SPREE.  1 95 

his  man  drove  over  for  him  in  the  morning. 
But  to-day  Turner  was  not  in  the  wagon.  His 
man  was  driving  alone,  and  he  drove  straight 
for  the  hotel,  peering  under  the  veranda  as  he 
came  until  his  eye  fell  on  his  mistress.  He 
alighted,  went  up  to  her,  gave  her  a  note,  and 
marched  back  to  his  wagon. 

Mrs.  Tom  read  the  letter,  gave  a  husky 
little  cry,  turned  paler  than  her  powder,  and 
straightened  out  rigid,  as  though  she  were  in 
an  epileptic  fit.  The  group  of  women  closed 
in  about  her.  I  hurried  toward  them,  but,  be 
fore  I  came  near,  Mrs.  Tom  had  recovered  her 
self,  at  least  enough  to  walk  with  a  woman  on 
each  side  of  her,  and  they  took  her  to  the 
nearest  room.  She  passed  within  a  yard  of 
me,  and  the  frightened,  stricken  stare  of  the 
eyes  that  looked  out  from  that  painted  face 
was  like  a  vision  of  death  and  judgment. 

I  need  hardly  say  that  in  her  few  moments 
of  unconsciousness  somebody  in  the  crowd  read 
her  letter.  I  heard  its  contents  discussed  in 
the  open  street.  It  was  from  Tom,  and  said 
that  he  had  gone  away,  and  that  she  should 
not  see  him  again.  It  was  a  drunken  man's 
letter ;  but,  drunk  or  sober,  Tom  never  failed 
of  his  word. 

****** 

The  next  day  a  delegation  of  the  harpies, 


196  MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE. 

who  had  no  notion  to  let  their  prey  slip  away 
so  easily,  drove  up  to  call  on  poor  dear  Mrs. 
Turner.  They  were  refused  admittance  at  the 
gates.  The  three  children  were  dangerously 
ill,  the  lodge-keeper  said,  and  Mrs.  Turner 
would  see  no  one. 

It  was  believed  for  a  time  that  the  sickness 
of  the  children  was  a  mere  excuse  for  retire 
ment  ;  but  the  next  day  the  local  doctor  hailed 
me  from  his  gig,  and  gave  me  some  news.  He 
was  a  testy,  kindly,  vehement  conservative,  this 
little  gray  old  doctor. 

"  Your  people  have  gone  home,  haven't 
they?  "  he  asked. 

"  Yes,  sir — last  week.  I've  got  to  stay  and 
finish  my  grind.  It's  a  beast." 

"  Well,  you'd  best  get  out,  too.  There's 
something  like  an  epidemic  in  town.  The 
three  Turner  children  are  down.  I  think 
they'll  come  out  all  right — mother's  with 
'em  now,  nursing  'em  day  and  night — but 
it's  hard  to  tell.  Dysentery — that's  all — 
but  I've  had  seven  other  cases  within  thirty- 
six  hours,  and  there  are  one  or  two  I  don't 
like  the  looks  of.  Don't  believe  in  scares — 
but  you  know  what  the  papers  say.  Cholera 
on  the  other  side — had  a  genuine  case  in  New 
York  yesterday.  Just  about  time  wre  had 
another  turn  of  it  in  this  country.  And  if  it 


MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE.  197 

does  come,  young  man,  this  is  the  sort  of 
place  that's  just  ripe  for  it.  Five  hundred 
new  people  here  since  June — not  a  drain — 
not  a  damn  drain — beg  your  pardon,  sir!  It's 
manslaughter — rank  manslaughter  !  And  if  it 
gets  into  that  devil's  toy-shop  there " — he 
pointed  to  the  hotel — "  it  will  have  everything 
its  own  way — close  the  cussed  place,  I  hope. 
Clk  !  Kitty,  git  up  !  Don't  you  stay  here, 
my  boy ;  don't  you  stay  here  !  Clk  !  " 

Being  a  boy,  of  course  I  did  not  go.  The 
prospect  of  beholding  a  pestilence  was  far  too 
alluring. 

The  doctor  was  right.  Bad  drainage — or, 
rather,  no  drainage  at  all — and  a  summer  of 
uninterrupted  heat  had  worked  together  to 
produce  a  local  epidemic  of  a  serious  nature. 
It  was  on  a  Monday  that  this  conversation  was 
held  ;  on  Tuesday  a  half  dozen  cases  appeared 
at  the  hotel,  and  then  this  little  army  of  fri 
volity,  a  host  of  weak  creatures  with  nothing 
to  tie  up  to  in  this  world  or  the  next,  were 
smitten  with  utter,  shameless  panic.  Those 
of  them  who  could  go  at  once  went.  Before 
Wednesday  night  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
seven  people  had  left  the  hotel.  More  than 
that  number  remained  against  their  will,  held 
by  one  cause  or  another — in  most  cases,  im- 
pecuniosity.  There  were  many  fair  ladies  in 


198  MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE. 

that  caravansary  who  were  in  the  habit  of 
depositing  their  diamonds  in  the  hotel-safe 
at  night,  not  because  they  were  in  fear 
of  thieves,  but  because  the  proprietor  par 
ticularly  requested  it.  Various  gentlemen, 
moreover,  were  chained,  as  it  were,  to  the 
bar-room  slate  and  the  account-book  of  the 
billiard-room  keeper.  There  was  much  tele 
graphing  for  remittances,  and  the  faro-bank 
did  a  rushing  business  twenty-four  hours  in 
the  day,  and  would  willingly  have  kept  open 
twenty-five  hours,  had  it  been  possible. 

Saturday  ended  this  carnival  of  fear,  for  the 
great  hotel  closed.  Nearly  sixscore  people, 
sick  and  well,  left  the  great  barracks  staring 
at  the  dull  fall  day  out  of  its  hundreds  of 
blindless  windows,  marched  down  the  long 
street,  and  piled  in  confusion  into  the  two 
stuffy  little  cars  that  made  up  a  train  on  the 
shaky  little  railroad  that  ran  from  Northoak 
to  the  Hudson  River.  The  more  decent  of 
the  lot  somehow  settled  in  the  rearv/ard  car ; 
in  that  behind  the  engine,  the  wilder  spirits  got 
together,  and  to  watch  these  I  slipped  in  and 
seated  myself  on  the  wood-box. 

That  was  a  hideous  journey.  Fear — the 
most  abject,  dastardly,  selfish  fear  possessed 
this  crowd  that  was  so  brazen  three  days  be 
fore  ;  and,  after  the  manner  of  their  kind,  they 


MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE.  199 

tried  to  hide  it  with  bravado.  Some  had  bot 
tles  of  champagne,  all  had  whiskey  or  brandy, 
and  as  time  went  on  they  drank  themselves 
half-wild.  They  sang,  they  shouted,  they 
made  mad  and  brutal  jokes.  The  restric 
tions  of  decency  and  even  of  discretion  were 
forgotten.  Strange  relationships  stood  out  in 
undisguised  frankness,  and  the  ugliest  part  of 
all  their  ugliness  was  the  open  selfishness  that 
showed  how  frail  was  the  tie  that  knit  one 
human  being  to  another.  And  among  them 
all  not  one  spoke  the  word  that  summed  up 
all  their  terrors.  They  spoke  of  "  it,"  and 
that  "it"  meant  the  Cholera.  Typhus  and 
malaria  were  waiting  for  many  of  them  ;  but  of 
these  dangers,  which  had  obviously  menaced 
them  through  all  their  sojourn  at  that  drain- 
less  barrack,  they  thought  nothing.  It  was  a 
baseless  terror,  an  all  but  impossible  possi 
bility,  that  struck  terror  to  their  weak  souls. 

Save  myself,  there  were  but  two  silent 
passengers  in  the  car.  Directly  opposite  me 
sat  the  bird  of  prey,  Mrs.  Gilderoy  of  New 
Orleans.  Sheer  fright  had  prostrated  her,  and 
had  brought  back  an  old  trouble,  quiescent  for 
years.  She  had  been  taken  with  hemorrhage 
of  the  lungs.  She  had  telegraphed  to  New 
York,  to  a  certain  Sister  of  Charity.  "  She 
will  come,"  the  scared  wretch  said ;  and  she 


2OO  MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE. 

had  come,  and  now  was  taking  this  pallid 
shadow  of  a  woman  back  to  New  York,  to 
die  within  the  white  walls  of  a  hospital,  no 
longer  a  person,  an  agent  for  good  or  ill  in 
the  breathing  world — a  number,  in  a  numbered 
cot,  for  which  some  other  wretch  waits,  to  be 
a  number  in  her  turn.  Looking  at  the  faces 
of  these  two  women,  as  they  sat  side  by  side, 
you  saw  that  they  were  sisters  in  another  sense 
than  that  of  Christian  charity.  But  peace  was 
in  one  face  and  deadly  fear  in  the  other. 

Just  as  we  drew  into  our  station  on  the 
Hudson,  a  woman  fainted,  and  an  access  of 
fright  set  the  whole  carload  of  men  and 
women  struggling  for  the  doors.  That  was 
the  last  I  saw  of  them.  They  took  the  rail 
road  ;  I  crossed  the  river  in  a  row-boat  and 
went  down  to  New  York  in  a  freight-barge, 
which  is  the  ideal  way  of  travelling,  if  there 
are  no  calves  aboard. 

****** 

It  was  ten  years  before  I  saw  Northoak 
again,  and  it  was  only  an  idle  impulse  that 
took  me  there.  I  had  three  or  four  last  days 
at  the  end  of  a  vacation  in  the  mountains. 
My  party  had  disbanded ;  no  one  expected 
me  in  New  York  before  the  next  Monday. 
It  came  into  my  head  to  stop  at  Northoak  on 
my  way  back,  to  whip  the  trout-streams  after 


MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE.  2OI 

my  own  fashion — a  luxury  I  cannot  indulge  in 
when  there  are  professional-amateur  anglers 
to  wither  me  with  their  scorn.  Yes,  I  take  a 
book  in  my  pocket,  and,  if  the  trout  will  not 
have  me,  I  lie  down  under  a  tree  and  walk  the 
London  streets  with  Mr.  Samuel  Pepys,  mon 
strous  fine  in  his  waistcoat  made  of  his  wife's 
brocade  petticoat,  or  stroll  under  the  Italian 
skies  with  Eichendorff's  Good-for-nothing  in 
his  mystic,  magical  Wanderjahre.  North- 
oak  trout  were  too  small  game  for  the  gentry 
who  despise  this  sort  of  fishing ;  yet  there  be 
trout  at  Northoak,  so  there  I  went.  I  had 
other  reasons,  of  course — a  foolish  fancy  of 
reminiscence  leading  me  back  to  look  for 
boyhood  in  boyhood's  paths. 

I  found  my  old  abiding-place,  still  a  refuge 
for  the  stranger,  but  now  only  as  a  lodging- 
house  for  those  who  "  mealed  "  at  the  hotel. 
It  was  kept  by  a  brisk  woman  of  business, 
fresh  from  New  England,  who  could  tell  me 
nothing  of  my  old  friends.  I  asked  for  the 
room  that  had  been  mine  ;  but  when  I  saw  it, 
and  found  how  close  and  small  it  was  (and 
always  must  have  been),  I  gladly  took  a  larger 
chamber  on  the  floor  below. 

I  went  to  dinner  at  the  hotel.  There  it  was, 
the  same  hotel,  but,  oh !  how  changed  from 
that  hotel  I  had  known.  All  the  smartness  of 


2O2  MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE. 

it  had  vanished.  The  wood-work  was  warped  ; 
the  paint,  of  a  later  era  of  bad  taste,  was  dull 
and  weather-worn  ;  the  frescoed  ceiling  of  the 
great  dining-room  had  fallen  in  a  dozen  places, 
and  the  damages  had  been  repaired  with  white 
plaster.  The  yellow  and  blue  satin  furniture 
was  gone.  Strange,  angular  furniture  had  taken 
its  place.  I  was  told  that  it  was  in  the  East- 
lake  style.  The  house  was  full — filled  with 
quiet,  decorous  families  from  Boston  and  Phila 
delphia,  with  a  small  mingling  of  highly  re 
spectable,  hard-working  artists.  I  don't  think 
there  was  a  bottle  of  champagne  in  the  place. 
I  know  that  there  was  a  sewing-circle  in  the 
rooms  where  the  faro-bank  used  to  be,  and  a 
candy-shop  in  the  place  of  the  saloon. 

Not  a  trace  left  of  the  old  life— the  old  silly, 
reckless,  dangerous,  hopeful,  happy  life.  Every 
thing  is  better  now,  wiser,  more  wholesome. 
And  yet  we  were  happy  in  those  days  when 
the  "  Blue  Danube  "  was  new ;  when  we  first 
beheld  le  sabre  de  mon  ptre ;  when  our  veins 
thrilled  with  the  potentiality  of  pleasures  that 
we  have  grown  tired  of  since— in  those  crude 
days  when  things  were  fresher  than  they  are 
now.  And  this  much  I  am  sure  of :  we  who 
left  our  boyhood  behind  us  a  score  of  years  ago 
were  a  deal  merrier,  more  companionable, 
juicier  fellows  than  the  finished  youths  of 


MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE.  203 

to-day,  who  take  their  pleasures  so  sadly,  who 
know  such  a  weary,  worrysome  lot  about  what 
is  good  form  and  what  isn't,  and  who  treat 
women  just  as  they  treat  men. 

On  the  morning  after  my  arrival  I  sat  in  my 
room  writing  letters.  Looking  up  and  out  the 
window,  I  saw  a  dog-cnrt  going  along  the  street. 
In  it  sat  a  gray-haired  woman,  bolt  upright, 
dressed  in  a  gown  of  yellow  and  black,  so 
strange  in  fashion,  as  well  as  in  color,  that  it 
might  have  been  the  caprice  of  a  madwoman. 
I  saw  her — and  she  was  gone.  But  I  knew 
Mrs.  Tom. 

I  had  a  feeling  of  something  like  dizziness  as 
I  tried  to  realize  that  I  had  actually  seen  this 
thing,  and  not  dreamed  it.  I  had  seen  Mrs. 
Tom,  gray-haired  and  pale,  dressed  in  the 
clothes  I  had  seen  her  in  a  decade  before. 
What  was  she  now  ?  A  ghostly  maniac,  re 
visiting  the  scenes  of  her  mad  happiness  ? 

I  thought  about  it  until  I  could  write  letters 
no  longer,  and  set  out  for  a  walk.  I  had  hardly 
crossed  the  threshold  of  the  house  when  a  voice 
cried : 

-Hello!" 

I  stopped,  and  a  man  grasped  my  hand. 

"  Knew  you  right  off!"  he  said.  "Glad  to 
see  you.  Changed,  haven't  you  ?  Stopping 
here,  eh  ?  No  !  Won't  do  !  Come  up  to  my 


2O4  MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE. 

house.  Mrs.  Turner  glad  to  see  you.  After 
trout  ?  Show  you  lots.  Mustn't  stay  here — 
won't  have  it !  Come  for  you  at  three.  Get 
your  traps  ready.  Bless  you — knew  you  right 
off— didn't  I?" 

I  had  been  only  a  boy  when  he  knew  me 
for  a  summer  or  two,  but  when  he  bade  me 
good-by,  after  making  me  promise  to  visit  him, 
he  walked  off,  smiling,  as  though  he  had  met 
his  best  friend.  He  was  changed,  too.  His 
hair  was  grizzled,  and  when  he  was  not  speak 
ing  his  eyes  had  a  half-vacant,  half-sleepy  look 
that  had  not  belonged  to  his  youthful  stolidity. 

At  three  he  came  for  me,  and  I  had  to  go, 
much  as  I  dreaded  meeting  Mrs.  Tom.  He 
was  cheerful  as  we  drove  along,  but  as  taci 
turn  as  of  old.  If  he  spoke,  it  was  to  say 
something  about  the  weather  or  the  crops,  or 
the  cattle  in  the  fields  which  we  passed.  Mrs. 
Turner  was  well,  he  said,  and  the  children. 
They  had  had  another  one  since  I  had  seen 
them — a  splendid  boy,  four  years  old  now.  A 
fine  growing  summer!  They  would  have  the 
finest  crop  of  hay  ever  gathered  in  the  county 
—didn't  I  think  so  ? 

We  found  Mrs.  Tom  in  the  great  drawing- 
room  that  opened  on  the  lawn,  and  my  heart 
sank  within  me  as  I  saw  that  she  was  dressed 
in  a  gown  of  faded  pink,  almost  as  startlingly 


MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE. 

out  of  fashion  as  the  odd  garment  she  had 
worn  in  the  morning.  But  though  she  blushed 
a  little  as  she  greeted  me  (and  her  blush, 
against  her  soft  gray  hair,  made  her  look  al 
most  pretty),  she  showed  no  embarrassment, 
no  strangeness  of  manner,  and  in  a  moment  I 
felt  quite  at  ease,  not  only  for  myself  but  for 
her.  At  the  first  look,  I  fancied  that  her  pale 
face  seemed  stern  ;  at  the  second,  I  saw  in  it 
such  a  sweet  dignity  that  I  wondered  why  I  had 
ever  thought  of  the  clothes  she  had  on. 

After  a  while  the  children  came  in,  and 
presently  Turner  took  them  off  to  see  if  the 
new  Jersey  cow  had  arrived.  The  three  elder 
were  attractive  children.  The  two  girls  were 
perhaps  fifteen  and  sixteen,  well  mannered, 
and  pretty,  or  comely  at  least.  The  boy  was 
a  fine  fellow  of  thirteen,  with  a  manly  way 
about  him.  The  youngest  was  of  a  different 
sort.  I  thought  him  dull  and  heavy,  and  he 
had  the  pettish  bearing  of  a  spoiled  child.  But 
I  saw  that  this  Benjamin  was  as  the  apple  of 
his  mother's  eye.  There  was  a  difference  not 
only  of  degree  but  of  kind  in  the  look  which 
she  cast  after  him  as  her  eyes  followed  her 
children  out  of  the  room. 

They  had  hardly  gone  when  she  looked  up 
at  me  with  a  tremulous  eagerness  and  said: 

"You  didn't  want  to  come?     No,  I  under- 


206  MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE. 

stand.  But  I  wanted  to  tell  you  that  I'm  glad 
to  have  you  here.  Of  course,  I  wanted  you  to 
come  because  it  pleased  him;  but  I'm  glad  to 
see  you,  anyway — for  myself,  don't  you  know." 

I  said  that  I  had  hoped  she  would  care  to 
see  me ;  but  she  paid  no  attention  to  my 
awkward  commonplaces,  and  went  on  : 

"  I  thought  you'd  feel  that  I  wouldn't  want 
to  see  you,  on  account  of — that  time,  you 
know — my  spree.  Oh,  yes,  I  know.  That's 
what  they  called  it.  I  know  a  good  deal  now 
that  I  didn't  know  then.  I  know  just  how- 
just  how  I  seemed  to  people.  That's  why  I 
don't  mind  seeing  you.  It  wasn't  quite  the 
same  with  you.  You  never  had  anything  to 
do  with  making  me  behave — as  I  did." 

She  snatched  up  a  little  dress  from  the  work- 
basket  by  her  side,  stretched  it  out  and  shaped 
it  upon  her  lap,  threaded  a  needle  with  that 
mechanical  deftness  which  belongs  to  women, 
and  began  sewing  and  talking  at  once. 

"  I  don't  believe  you  ever  made  fun  of  me. 
They  all  did.  I've  often  thought  since,  think 
ing  how  those  men  pretended  to  make  love  to 
me,  that  you  were  always  respectful — don't 
you  understand  me  ?  It  made  me  feel,  when 
I  used  to  think  about  it,  that  I  was  worth  it 
—you  know  what  I  mean  ?  I've  ground  my 
teeth  sometimes  just  for  pain,  and  then  I've 


MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE.  2O/ 

thought  how  nice  you  were  to  me,  and  I've 
felt  better." 

Great  God !  I  thought  to  myself,  can  the 
chance  of  a  boy's  decent  breeding  mean  so 
much  to  his  fellow-beings  ? 

"  I  didn't  mean  to  talk  about  that  time," 
she  began  again,  after  she  had  stitched  for  a 
minute  in  silence.  "  I  only  meant  to  tell  you 
something  so  that  you  would  understand  how 
it  is  now.  I  don't  know  whether  you  heard 
much  about  what  happened  afterwards." 

"  I  heard  something,"  I  said ;  "  you  went 
West." 

"  Not  till  the  next  summer.  We  tried  all 
we  could,  but  we  didn't  find  out  where  he  was 
till  then.  And  Ethel  wasn't  really  strong  until 
June.  Then  I  heard  where  he  was,  and  I  went 
out  and  found  him  in  Omaha." 

She  paused  again,  and  kept  her  head  down 
close  over  her  work. 

"  He  wouldn't  even  see  me.  He  wouldn't 
let  me  come  near  him.  He  was  drinking,  you 
know.  I  don't  mean  that  I  blame  him  " — she 
raised  her  head  and  looked  me  in  the  eye, 
feeling  herself  the  champion  of  her  husband— 
"  he  never  v/ould  have  done  it  if  it  hadn't  been 
for  me — and  he  wasn't  himself."  She  dropped 
her  head  again.  "  Then  he  had  the  delirium, 
and  I  could  come  and  nurse  him,  and  then 


2O8  MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE. 

came  the  brain  fever,  and  after  that  he  woke 
up  one  morning  just  as  clear  as  ever — just 
like  his  own  self — and  he's  been  so  ever  since. 
That's  when  we  came  home  ;  and,  oh,  it  seemed 
to  me  that  I  could  just  get  down  and  kiss  the 
ground !  " 

She  held  her  work  at  arm's  length  and 
winked  at  it  until  she  could  see  it  clearly. 

"  I  don't  know  that  I  should  say  just  his 
old  self,"  she  began  again  ;  "  he's  never  been 
the  same,  exactly.  You  know  he  used  to  be 
quite  bright." 

I  never  had  known  it — but  I  said  I  had. 

"  Well,  I  think  he's  getting  clearer  all  the 
time.  He  knew  you  at  once,  didn't  he?  " 

"  He  spoke  to  me  first,"  I  hastened  to  say, 
"  before  I  recognized  him." 

"  Yes,  he  came  home  and  told  me.  He  was 
very  proud  of  it.  That's  one  reason  why  I  was 
so  glad  you  came.  He  knows  it,  you  know, 
and  it's  such  a  gain  when  he  feels  sure  of  him 
self." 

I  nursed  my  vanity  for  a  while.  Then  Mrs. 
Tom  began  once  more,  looking  straight  at  me, 
though  her  cheeks  were  flushed. 

"  Of  course  you've  noticed —  Her  eyes 
dropped,  and  she  looked  at  her  dress  as  though 
she  would  have  me  look  at  it.  "  I'm  wearing 
them  out." 


MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE.  2CX) 

I  suppose  my  eyes  were  blankly  inquisitive. 

"  They're  the  things  I  had  then.  I'm  wear 
ing  them  out.  It's  a  part  of  my  penance.  I 
don't  mean  in  a  Roman  Catholic  way,  you 
know,"  she  interpolated,  with  a  look  of  shocked 
affright  in  her  eyes  ;  "  I  don't  mean  anything 
of  that  sort,  of  course,  but  only — oh,  you  can't 
get  away  from  what  you've  done.  And  you 
wouldn't  believe  it,  but  in  that  one  month  that 
I  was — on  my  spree — I  had  nineteen  dresses 
made,  and  had  eleven  more  ordered,  just  to 
have  more  than  anybody  else  in  that  horrid 
place.  And  then  there  were  fourteen  that  I 
had  ordered  from  Paris.  They  came  home  at 
Christmas,  just  the  day  before.  That  was  my 
only  Christmas  present  that  year — and  hadn't 
I  bought  it  myself  ?  Oh,  I  knew  that  then !  " 

She  had  dropped  her  work  and  had  folded 
her  hands  in  her  lap. 

"  I  don't  know  that  I  can  make  you  under 
stand  why  I  wear  those  things,"  she  said.  "  It's 
like  having  a  whip  on  my  back,  sometimes,  to 
get  them  on.  I  don't  know  why  I'm  talking 
to  you  like  this,  anyway,  except  that  I  never 
have  talked  to  any  one.  But,  don't  you  see, 
the  children  are  growing  up,  and  they'll  know 
all  about  it.  Oh,  I've  told  them— the  older 
ones — but  they  don't  understand.  It  doesn't 
mean  anything  to  them.  They  can't  think 
14 


2IO  MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE. 

their  mother  ever  did  anything  wrong.  It's 
like  talking  of  original  sin  to  them.  But  you 
know  they'll  be  out  in  the  world — that  is,  our 
world  here — in  a  little  while,  and  then  it  will 
all  be  told  to  them,  and  you  know  how  it  will 
be  told — you  know  just  how  they'll  have  to 
hear  it.  And  it's  always  seemed  to  me  that  if 
they  saw  me  in  those  clothes  they'd  under 
stand  it — that  they  wouldn't  be  so  far  away 
from  it — that  they'd  feel  they  knew  about  it, 
and  it  was  something  that  had  come  naturally 
to  them  ;  and  they  could  forgive  it,  and  say, 
'Poor  mother,  we  don't  mind  that!'  And 
they're  so  used  to  me — so  used  to  these  things 
—I  think  they  will.  Don't  you  understand?" 

The  setting  sun  made  the  white  walls  pink. 
I  watched  the  warm  light  spreading.  I  had 
looked  once  in  Mrs.  Tom's  eyes,  and  I  had 
nothing  to  say.  But  soon  she  spoke  again,  in 
a  cheerful,  hopeful  voice. 

"  I've  worn  them  all  almost  out.  When  I 
get  to  the  end  of  them,  I'll  have  my  own  things 
again." 

By  and  by  the  children  came  in  once  more. 
The  new  cow  had  arrived,  and  papa  was  wait 
ing  for  mamma  in  the  lower  pasture.  We  went 
down,  and  joined  with  Tom  in  praising  the 
beautiful  Jersey.  I  noticed  that  at  every  word 
of  critical  praise  he  uttered  he  appealed  to  his 


MRS.    TOM'S  SPREE.  211 

wife,  and  that  she  confirmed  his  judgment  in  a 
tone  that  was  almost  maternal.  Even  so  might 
a  mother  assent  to  her  boy's  simple  guesses  at 
the  use  and  meaning  of  the  things  about  him. 

As  we  left  the  pasture  Tom  took  his  wife's 
hand  to  direct  her  attention  to  something  in 
the  economy  of  the  farm  about  which  he  asked 
her  advice.  We  went  up  the  hill  in  the  twi 
light,  and  I  lingered  behind  with  the  children, 
and  saw  that  he  still  kept  hold  of  the  tips  of 
her  ringers,  as  they  walked  up  the  hill  together. 
****** 

Mrs.  Tom  is  dead,  or  this  tale  would  not  be 
told.  But  it  is  only  a  few  years  ago  that  she 
died,  and  I  think  that  she  had  time  enough  on 
earth  to  wear  out  those  cruel  clothes,  and  to 
sit  a  while  with  her  husband  and  her  children, 
clad  in  such  a  soft  gray  gown  as  I  saw  her  wear 
once  upon  a  time,  with  a  white  handkerchief 
folded  over  a  peaceful  breast. 


SQUIRE   FIVE-FATHOM. 


FHERE  had  been  a  heavy  rain  the  night 
before,  and  I  was  playing  with  sand  and 
water  in  the  deep  trench  between  the  road  and 
the  lower  wall  of  my  father's  garden,  and  enjoy 
ing  it  as  much  as  a  boy  of  eight  years  can 
enjoy  anything  without  the  company  of  other 
boys.  A  swift  stream  of  clear  water  rushed 
down  this  sandy  gutter,  and  made  for  me  a  far- 
western  river,  on  whose  bank  I  was  construct 
ing  a  fort  to  defy  the  hostile  Indians.  I  had 
selected  a  grassy  promontory  jutting  out  into 
the  stream,  and  had  pulled  all  the  grass  out  by 
the  roots  and  levelled  the  earth,  and  was  begin 
ning  on  my  fortifications,  when  I  observed  with 
alarm  the  dissolution  of  the  point  of  my  site, 
which,  no  longer  held  together  by  the  fibrous 
grass  roots,  was  rapidly  turning  into  black  mud 
and  going  down  the  current  in  a  cloud. 

I  tried  to  stem  the  flood  with  a  flat  stone  set 
on  end  ;  but  it  would  not  stay  on   end,  and  I 


SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM.  21$ 

was  contemplating  the  necessity  of  a  change  of 
base  for  my  military  operations,  when  the  tip 
of  a  thick  walking-stick  was  thrust  between  my 
face  and  the  water,  and  I  heard  a  tremulous, 
eager  old  voice  cry  earnestly  : 

"Further  up — further  up,  my  lad;  there — 
there  where  you  have  it  now — set  off  the  cur 
rent  ever  so  little.  Ay,  that's  it !  Now  build 
your  sea-wall — good  boy  !  " 

I  obeyed  him  mechanically,  and  in  a  few  sec 
onds  saw  the  stream  swirl  off  from  my  point, 
leaving  it  in  a  safe  space  of  calm  water.  The 
Indians  on  the  other  shore  must  have  felt 
gloomy  forebodings. 

I  looked  up.  A  tall,  gaunt  old  gentleman, 
with  a  Roman  nose,  and  a  delicate  mouth  with 
deep  wrinkles  about  it,  as  though  he  drew  his 
lips  together  a  good  deal,  stood  and  looked 
hard  at  the  water.  He  did  not  look  at  me  at 
all ;  but  I  looked  hard  at  him — at  his  sad  old 
face,  his  shabby  brown  broadcloth  coat,  the 
great  rusty  black  satin  stock  about  his  neck, 
and  his  napless  beaver  hat  with  its  rolling  brim. 

He  stared  at  the  water  fora  moment  or  two, 
gave  an  odd  sort  of  half-choked  sigh,  and  passed 
on  his  way. 

That  was  the  first  time  Squire  Five-Fathom 
spoke  to  me. 

The  town  where  I  lived  and  fought  Indians 


214  SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM. 

was  called  Gerrit's  Gate.  (For  the  benefit  of  a 
generation  that  pronounces  Coney  Island  and 
Hoboken  as  they  are  spelled,  that  knows  not 
oelykoeks,  and  that  desecrates  suppawn  by 
calling  it  mush,  let  me  say  that  Gerrit  to  the 
eye  is  Garrit  to  the  ear.)  The  story  of  Gerrit's 
Gate  is  the  story  of  Myndert  Gerrit  and  his  son, 
the  old  gentleman  who  helped  me  in  my  civil- 
engineering. 

Myndert  Gerrit  came  from  Schenectady  to 
found  the  place.  He  was  a  rich  man  by  inher 
itance,  and  he  had  moreover  inherited  pride, 
ambition,  and  a  high  temper — a  mental  and 
spiritual  outfit  which  put  him  sadly  out  of  place 
in  a  conservative  old  midland  town.  I  do  not 
know  just  what  was  his  quarrel  with  Schenec 
tady ;  but  I  know  he  bought  his  square  mile  of 
"military  lots"  on  the  shore  of  Lake  Ontario 
with  the  avowed  intention  of  building  up  a 
town  that  should  be  to  Schenectady  as  a  moun 
tain  to  a  hill — and  that  should  incidentally  out 
rival  Rochester  and  Oswego.  He  said,  and 
indeed  it  seemed,  that  the  finger  of  Heaven  had 
pointed  out  the  place. 

As  he  stood  on  the  hill  to  the  southwest  of 
his  new  purchase,  Myndert  Gerrit  saw  before 
him  three  wooded  promontories  stretching  out 
into  the  lake — Near  Point  to  the  east,  Far  Point 
to  the  west,  and  Middle  Point,  shorter  by  half 


SQUIRE    FIVE-FATHOM.  21$ 

than  its  neighbors,  nestling  between  them,  and 
dividing  a  large  bay  into  two  snug  harbors. 
Middle  Point  must  have  been,  centuries  ago, 
as  long  as  the  others,  but  it  had  been  fighting 
a  slowly  losing  battle  with  the  mighty  current 
from  the  west  that  swept  inward  from  Far  and 
out  again  past  the  end  of  Near  Point.  This 
current  made  entrance  to  the  western  harbor 
difficult — even  dangerous ;  but  the  eastern  it 
was  an  easier  matter  to  reach,  and,  once  in,  the 
largest  ship  on  the  lake  could  lie  in  safe  water 
while  the  northwester  went  by  Far  and  Near 
and  the  current  hammered  away  at  Middle, 
making  a  poor  foot  a  year  out  of  the  firm,  root- 
bound  soil.  And  at  the  head  of  this  little 
haven  the  land  lay  in  a  low  plateau,  forming  a 
natural  levee. 

Here  came  Myndert  Gerrit  in  1822,  with  his 
only  son  (he  was  a  widower)  and  his  whole 
household,  including  ten  free  negroes,  formerly 
his  slaves.  The  son  was  then  a  man  of  thirty, 
unmarried,  and  devoted  in  all  things  to  his  fa 
ther.  They  were  constant  companions,  and,  as 
far  as  I  could  learn,  they  cared  little  for  other 
society.  Gerrit  reserved  the  high  eastern 
promontory  for  his  own  mansion.  He  laid  the 
foundation  that  year,  while  he  and  his  people 
lived  in  log  cabins.  During  the  summer  he 
surveyed  the  level  land,  and  staked  it  out  for 


2l6  SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM. 

streets.  In  the  fall  he  went  to  New  York,  and 
he  returned  the  next  spring,  leading  a  caravan 
of  some  twenty  families,  and  bringing  with  him 
the  machinery  for  a  saw-mill  and  a  grist-mill. 
It  was  a  long  and  tiresome  journey — a  great 
labor  of  transportation  ;  but,  by  water  and  by 
wagon,  they  made  it  in  about  a  month. 

Laborers  came  from  neighboring  villages  (or 
rather  settlements),  and  ground  was  broken 
without  delay.  They  cut  a  good  road  running 
two  miles  to  the  eastward,  where  it  opened  up 
a  branch  of  Gravelly  River,  which  gave  them 
flat-boat  navigation  to  the  line  of  the  Grand 
Canal,  as  they  called  the  Erie,  at  that  time 
within  a  year  or  two  of  completion. 

The  mansion  on  Near  Point  was  finished  in 
September,  and  the  two  Gerrits  went  to  live  in 
it.  Standing  at  his  west  window  late  one  after 
noon,  he  looked  out  and  saw  a  sight  that  filled 
him  with  pride.  Middle  Point  was  shorn  of 
every  tree,  and  bristled  only  with  surveyor's 
stakes.  Only  the  great  gaps  in  the  earth  showed 
where  the  twisted  roots  had  been,  and  these 
were  growing  into  larger  holes,  that  marked  the 
sites  of  houses  to  be.  Up  in  the  streets  back 
of  the  levee  a  few  light  structures  had  already 
arisen.  Two  or  three  temporary  docks  stretched 
out  into  the  quiet  blue  waters  of  the  harbor. 
Myndert  Gerrit  looked  longest  at  Middle  Point, 


SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM.  21 J 

now  a  low  table  of  land  with  water  on  both 
sides.  A  street — or  what  was  to  be  a  street — 
ran  down  its  middle,  from  the  water  to  where, 
at  the  mainland,  it  joined  the  great  road  that 
stretched  away  through  the  woods  to  the  river 
— to  the  great  world — to  trade  and  life  and 
fortune. 

"  Now,"  he  said  to  his  son, "  my  part  is  done. 
I  have  made  all  ready  for  them.  Now  we  may 
begin  to  look  for  returns." 

Ay,  Myndert  Gerrit,  your  part  is  done,  and 
it  was  done  when  you  uprooted  the  first  tree 
and  dug  the  first  well  on  Middle  Point.  Look 
from  your  window  to-day  in  the  red  Fall  sun 
set,  and  see  if  you  can,  in  your  fancy,  the  town 
of  your  love  and  hope.  See  the  glister  of 
the  evening  sun  on  the  low  roofs  of  houses, 
on  steeple  and  spire  rising  serenely  above 
them.  See  it  redden  the  chimneys  of  homes 
and  set  its  dazzling  blaze  in  the  window- 
panes.  Hear  if  you  can,  in  your  thought,  the 
sound  of  people  moving  about  the  streets,  of 
children's  voices  at  play,  of  clanking  anvils, 
of  horses'  feet  on  the  roadways,  of  creaking 
cordage  and  flapping  canvas  where  your  laden 
ships  lie  at  their  docks  with  their  white  sails 
emblazoned  by  the  warm  light  of  the  west  ! 
See  it — hear  it — be  glad  of  it  in  the  pride  of 
your  heart ;  rejoice  in  the  town  in  which  you 


2l8  SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM. 

have  sunk  all  your  wealth  and  the  heritage  of 
your  son  !  For  when  you  wake  to-morrow  you 
will  awake  from  a  dream,  your  returns  shall  be 
water  and  the  wind  of  the  North  ;  your  house 
shall  be  taken  from  you,  and  in  a  little  while  you 
shall  have  no  part  or  lot  in  this  home  of  your 
own  choosing — save  in  six  feet  of  earth  above 
your  face. 

That  night  Myndert  Gerrit  heard  the  north 
wester  come  roaring  down  from  the  Canada 
forests  ;  but  he  paid  no  heed  to  it.  He  had 
heard  it  many  a  night  before.  It  might  knock 
at  his  headland  gates  till  it  wearied,  for  all  he 
cared. 

But  the  next  morning  at  five  o'clock,  his  son, 
looking  pale  and  frightened,  came  to  his  bed 
side,  and  told  him  he  must  go  at  once  to  the 
town — so  they  called  it  already.  He  dressed 
himself  and  hastened  to  Middle  Point,  and  there 
he  found  all  the  townspeople  gathered.  They 
stood  in  little  knots,  or  wandered  about  trying 
to  make  out  the  full  extent  of  the  damage. 
Their  faces  were  pale,  and  showed  ghastly  in  the 
gray  and  doubtful  light.  A  chill  of  alarm  and 
apprehension  had  seized  them.  They  looked 
suspiciously  and  almost  resentfully  at  the  old 
man  and  his  son.  What  had  these  two  men 
brought  them  to  ? 

Myndert  Gerrit  saw  his  great  mistake  with 


SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM.  21$ 

his  eyes,  but  his  heart  at  first  refused  to  accept 
the  truth.  He  was  like  a  man  who  sees  death 
for  the  first  time,  knows  it  is  death,  and  yet 
cannot  make  it  real  to  his  own  mind  that  the 
blood  will  no  more  flow  in  the  cold  veins,  that 
the  heart  shall  not  beat  again,  that  breath  and 
life  have  gone  out  together.  At  first  he  went 
about  bravely,  showing  the  people  how  a  jetty 
here,  and  a  dyke  there,  and  a  sea-wall  in  a  third 
place  would  put  all  to  rights;  but  even  before 
his  hearers  had  seen  that  the  remedy  was  far 
beyond  any  means  that  they  possessed,  he  him 
self  knew  that  the  danger  to  come  was  not  to 
be  met  by  any  scheme  of  his  devising.  The 
greater  part  of  the  Point  was  still  there,  but 
fifty  yards  were  gone  from  the  farther  end,  and 
the  unprotected  earth  was  still  crumbling  into 
the  turbid  current.  The  cellars  were  full  of 
water,  and  along  the  western  side  deep  gullies 
ran  up  to  the  line  of  the  main  street.  The 
framework  and  foundation  of  the  Point  were 
gone  ;  it  was  a  mere  bank  of  earth  before  that 
violent  and  uncontrollable  inland  ocean. 

When  he  saw  this,  he  went  back  to  his  house 
and  locked  himself  in  his  room,  and  not  even 
his  son  saw  him  until  the  next  day.  Then  he 
appeared  again,  and  tried,  for  a  little,  to  save 
the  day  by  moving  his  settlement  farther  back. 
But  the  panic  was  too  strong  for  him  ;  the 


22O  SQUIRE   FIVE-FATHOM. 

people  would  have  none  of  him  or  his  settle 
ment.  Some  of  them  were  for  going  back  to 
their  old  homes ;  but  the  most  went  over  to 
Far  Point  and  bought  land  there,  for  Gerrit 
paid  back  to  every  man  what  his  land  had  cost 
him.  Then  he  took  to  his  bed,  and  died  on 
New  Year's  day,  leaving  his  son  to  straighten 
out  the  tangle  of  his  affairs.  This  task,  prose 
cuted  with  the  sternest  economy  and  industry, 
occupied  seven  years.  At  the  end  of  the  seven 
years,  he  had  paid  off  every  cent  that  his  father 
owed,  and  he  himself  was  able  to  live  on  a 
pitiful  remainder  of  their  great  fortune,  just 
enough  to  pay  for  what  little  he  ate  and  drank. 
He  lived  rent  free  in  one  of  the  old  cabins  on 
the  level  land.  That  marshy  strip  was  his  yet, 
for  no  one  cared  to  take  it  from  him. 

Middle  Point  was  gone  entirely.  A  low 
earth  bluff  marked  its  landward  end.  The 
water  had  crept  up,  urged  by  the  current,  that 
now  set  far  in,  and  out  along  Near  Point ;  and 
a  shallow  inlet  ran  far  up  into  what  had  been 
the  levee.  On  the  edge  of  the  inlet,  among  the 
low  trees  and  underbrush  at  the  base  of  the  high 
point  on  which  his  father's  house  had  stood, 
old  John  Gerrit  dwelt  in  his  little  log  cabin, 
that  had  once  been  the  temporary  shelter  of 
his  father's  negroes.  He  was  fifty  years  old 
when  the  sad  work  of  his  life  was  done  ;  and 


SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM.  221 

knowing  of  no  other  work  for  himself,  having 
no  other  aim  in  life,  he  sat  himself  down   to 
live  life  out  without  troubling  his  neighbors. 
****** 

A  quarter  of  a  century  passed  between  the 
wreck  of  the  Gerrit  fortunes  and  the  days  when 
I  first  saw  the  old  man,  who  had  once  been  the 
young  man  of  the  house,  walking  about  the 
streets  of  Gerrit's  Gate  in  those  unaccountable 
rusty  clothes  of  his,  which,  though  he  changed 
them  often  enough,  never  looked  new  or  fresh. 
Gerrit's  Gate,  in  the  meanwhile,  had  thriven, 
after  a  fashion,  in  the  very  teeth  of  fortune, 
and  in  spite  of  being  settled  upon  the  site  de 
spised  of  Myndert  Gerrit.  In  my  boyhood  it 
had  a  couple  of  grain-elevators  (which  changed 
hands  every  year  or  so),  a  steam  saw-mill,  a 
lumber-yard,  and  a  patent-medicine  factory. 
It  had  old  residents  and  new  residents,  a  con 
servative  party  and  a  progressive  party.  Need 
I  say  that  the  progressive  party  was  divided 
from  its  opponents  on  the  question  of  getting 
such  an  appropriation  from  Congress  as  would 
stimulate  the  town's  consumptive  prosperity 
with  the  glow  of  commercial  health,  and  make 
her  the  metropolis  of  the  northern  lakes  ? 

What  I  have  here  set  down  of  John  Gerrit's 
early  history  I  gathered  in  part  from  my  father, 
in  part  from  John  Gerrit  himself.  But  it  was 


222  SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM. 

not  until  after  the  old  man's  death  that  I  learned 
why  the  old  folks  of  the  town  called  him  Squire 
Five-Fathom.  It  seemed,  an  old  lake  sailor 
told  me,  that  the  water  off  the  end  of  what  had 
been  Middle  Point  stood  just  thirty  feet  deep, 
and  the  ridge  of  rock  that  had  formed  the 
Point's  foundation  was  marked  "  Five-Fathom 
Point  "  on  old  charts — marked  as  a  dangerous 
spot,  where  the  current  had  seized  more  than 
one  storm-driven  ship  and  cast  her  against  the 
stony  shore. 

But  what  I  had  heard  was  quite  enough  to 
fire  a  boy's  imagination  ;  and,  from  the  day  he 
first  spoke  to  me,  Squire  Five-Fathom  was  to 
me  a  figure  of  romance  and  mystery  who  got 
tangled  up  in  my  dreams  with  Old  Mortality, 
and  Robinson  Crusoe,  and  Ethan  Brand — I  had 
no  "  Jack  Popaways  "  or  "  Young  Gold  Coiners  " 
to  read  about  in  my  lone  provincial  youth.  I 
stood  at  the  gate  to  watch  him  as  he  went 
past  the  house  every  morning  toward  the  town, 
on  the  pitiful  little  errands  of  his  commissary. 
How  long  he  made  those  errands — how 
much  ground  he  contrived  them  to  cover ! 
Many  a  time,  in  later  years,  I  have  seen  him 
going  from  shop  to  shop,  and  even  wandering 
in  search  of  street  stands,  that  he  might  buy 
the  one  apple  that  seemed  to  him  best  worth  a 
"  penny." 


SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM.  22$ 

Thus  I  worshipped  for  a  long  time,  in  silence 
and  at  a  distance.  Then  came  a  dull,  cloudy 
summer  Saturday  afternoon,  when  my  parents 
went  to  Catullus  Corners,  a  town  some  miles 
down  our  little  branch  railroad,  for  the  funeral 
of  some  aunt  or  cousin,  and  I  was  left  alone, 
in  charge  of  an  Irish  handmaiden,  who  pres 
ently  swore  me  to  secrecy  and  herself  went  off 
to  a  christening.  She  told  me,  as  she  departed, 
that  if  I  stirred  "  off  the  block  " — my  usual 
limits  of  solitary  excursion,  set  by  paternal 
decree — the  banshee  of  the  family  would  catch 
me.  But,  ah  !  I  was  beyond  the  day  of  faith 
in  the  banshee,  and  the  Celtic  wraith  had  no 
terrors  for  me.  I  hung  awhile  on  the  gate, 
watting  for  some  wandering  boy  that  I  might 
lure  him  in  to  play  with  me  ;  but  no  boy  came. 
As  I  look  back  now,  it  seems  to  me  that  boys 
must  have  been  very  scarce  at  Gerrit's  Gate. 
Perhaps  they  were  all  fishing  on  that  day,  for 
it  was  cloudy  and  still.  All  I  know  is,  they 
came  not.  I  looked  up  and  down  the  road.  I 
walked  to  the  east  corner  and  back,  and  then 
to  the  west  corner,  and  then  temptation  seized 
me.  It  was  only  a  couple  of  hundred  yards 
down  the  dusty  high-road  to  the  head  of  the 
lane  that  led  down  to  the  inlet.  There,  in  the 
mysterious,  enchanting  thickets  by  the  water's 
edge,  lay  the  dwelling  of  the  one  human  being 


224  SQUIRE  FIFE-FATHOM. 

of  my  acquaintance  who  looked  as  though  he 
had  come  out  of  one  of  those  books  which 
were  far  more  real  to  me  then  than  real  life. 

Far  off,  the  clock  in  our  kitchen  struck  three. 
Three  long  hours  before  my  father  and  mother 
should  return  !  Three  long  hours  of  a  lonely 
summer  afternoon,  and  only  a  feeble  and  in 
adequate  conscience  of  eight  years'  growth 
to  stiffen  my  moral  backbone  and  nerve  me  to 
heroism  and  renunciation !  One  stray  mo 
mentary  glimmer  of  sunlight  flashed  through 
the  clouds,  and  lit  up  the  leafy  entrance  to  the 
lane. 

Three  minutes  later  I  was  running  down 
that  bough-roofed  avenue,  my  pace  gradually 
slowing,  for  the  gleam  of  sunlight  was  gone, 
and  it  was  dismally  dim  under  the  trees.  But 
the  delicious  thrill  of  illicit  adventure  was  in  all 
my  small  body,  and  by  and  by  I  was  out  of  the 
dim  shade  and  on  the  broad,  open  path  that 
the  pot-hunters  had  trodden  all  around  the 
inlet.  Then  I  saw  below  me  its  shallow  reaches 
of  water,  paved  with  round  stones,  and  bor 
dered  with  bushes.  Then,  almost  before  I 
knew  where  I  was,  the  log  cabin  lay  right 
under  my  feet,  between  the  path  and  the  edge 
of  the  inlet. 

There  were  bushes  all  about  it,  except  for  a 
little  space  in  front.  A  mountain-ash  at  one 


SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM.  22$ 

end  towered  above  it,  and  tossed  high  in  the 
air  its  bunches  of  reddening  berries.  In  my 
memory  of  that  guilty  hour,  the  smell  of  the 
mountain-ash  is  stronger  than  the  picture  of 
the  dark  cabin,  the  dull  sky,  and,  to  the  north 
ward,  the  gray,  uneasy  lake,  restless  even  in 
that  heavy,  storm-breeding  calm. 

I  stole  cautiously  down  into  the  little  clear 
ing,  and  viewed  my  field  of  exploration. 
Smoke  rose  from  the  chimney ;  a  smell  of 
broth  on  the  fire  overcame  the  rank,  raw  smell 
of  the  ash-berries.  I  was  too  deeply  steeped 
in  crime  to  attempt  to  resist  an  irrational  im 
pulse  which  came  over  me,  and  I  walked  up  to 
the  door  and  knocked  loudly.  Then  I  stood 
there  with  my  heart  beating  hard,  like  a  re 
peated  echo  of  my  knock.  Would  he  come  to 
the  door  ?  What  would  he  say  ?  What  should 
I  say?  Would  he  speak  pleasantly  to  me? 
Would  he  talk  to  me  of  his  strange  history? 
Should  we  stray  into  delightful  confidences? 
Could  I  trust  him  with  certain  speculations 
which  I  had  long  nursed  concerning  the  treas 
ures  of  Captain  Kidd?  What  was  before  me 
— the  magic  vista  of  romance,  or  the  bitter 
ignominy  of  a  snub  ? 

The  door  opened,  and  the  tall  figure  of 
Squire  Five-Fathom  leaned  over  me.  Be 
tween  his  legs  I  saw  the  fire  on  the  cabin 
15 


226  SQUIRE   FIVE-FATHOM. 

hearth.  All  else  was  a  smoky  darkness.  He 
looked  down  at  me,  and  his  great  dark  eyes 
stared,  startled,  questioning,  out  of  their  deep 
sockets.  My  hand  was  in  all  human  probabil 
ity  the  first  that  had  knocked  at  his  door  in  a 
quarter  of  a  century.  Even  the  tax-collector 
left  him  alone. 

"What  do  you  want,  little  boy?"  he  asked, 
in  a  voice  that  seemed  to  come  from  the 
ground  underneath  him. 

Inwardly  I  was  something  dashed,  but  the 
spirit  of  my  impulse  was  not  to  be  overcome. 

"  I  have  come  to  call,"  I  said,  and  I  said  it 
firmly. 

His  eyes,  still  troubled  with  the  wonder  of 
lonely  old  age  at  any  unusual  thing,  looked  me 
all  over.  Slowly  he  seemed  to  comprehend 
that  I  was  but  a  natural,  mortal  boy.  His 
voice  had  lost  its  startled  tone  of  depth  and 
had  come  back  to  the  quaver  of  old  age  when 
he  spoke  again,  asking  my  name.  I  gave  it, 
and  he  repeated  it  in  an  accent  of  recognition 
mixed  with  reserve,  which  I  noted  at  the  time 
without  understanding  it  at  all.  But  I  have 
not  forgotten  that  delicate  inflection,  and  I 
know  now  that  my  grandfather  and  his  father 
were  warm  friends,  and  that  their  sons  knew 
each  other  only  by  name. 

However,    if   Squire    Five-Fathom    remem- 


SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM.  22/ 

bered  anything  of  this  sort,  he  checked  his 
memory  suddenly,  for  he  drew  back  with  a 
courteous  bow,  invited  me  to  enter,  and  asked 
me  to  be  seated  with  a  grace  so  fine  and  stately 
that  before  I  had  put  myself  on  a  low  old-fash 
ioned  chair  I  had  forgotten  that  I  had  ever 
been  addressed  as  a  "  little  boy." 

While  I  talked  with  the  Squire  I  looked 
furtively  around  the  cabin.  I  saw  first  the 
great  fireplace  of  logs  and  flat  stones,  where 
was  a  crane  from  which  a  pot  hung  simmering 
over  a  light  wood  fire.  Then  my  eyes  rose 
above  the  high  mantel-shelf,  and  saw  the  old 
flint-lock  shot-gun  that  had  been  Myndert 
Gerrit's,  hanging  on  its  hooks.  Then,  bit  by 
bit,  out  of  the  dull  gloom  of  the  place,  I  picked 
the  strange  appointments  of  the  last  home  of 
the  Gerrits.  Odd  bits  of  make-shift  fishing- 
tackle  were  all  about  ;  some  nets  hung  on  the 
wall  over  a  mahogany  sideboard  with  great 
claw-feet,  on  the  top  of  which  stood  a  brush 
and  comb  and  a  poor  little  square  of  looking- 
glass.  Opposite  these  things  a  pair  of  oars, 
wound  with  twine  to  cover  many  breaks, 
leaned  against  a  lady's  work-stand,  with  its 
faded  green  silk  bag  all  in  shreds  and  tatters. 

Two  miniatures,  rimmed  with  thin  bands  of 
gold,  hung  over  the  Squire's  bed,  which  was  a 
hospital  cot.  The  white  spread  was  clean, 


228  SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM. 

but  there  were  holes  in  it,  and  the  edges  were 
frayed.  On  this  bed  the  Squire  sat  down, 
by  the  side  of  a  heap  of  old  clothes.  We 
looked  shyly  at  each  other  for  nearly  a  minute 
before  we  began  a  formal  and  elegant  con 
versation. 

"  It  was  very  kind  of  you  to  call — very  kind 
indeed,"  said  the  Squire  ;  "  but  unexpected— 
quite  unexpected." 

"Yes,  sir,"  I  replied,  in  all  sincerity  ;  "it  was 
very  unexpected  indeed.  I  only  made  up  my 
mind  when  I  heard  the  clock  strike  three." 

The  Squire  looked  puzzled. 

"  Do  you — do  you  make  many  calls  ?  "  he 
inquired. 

"  No,  sir,"  I  replied.  Then,  after  reflection 
and  self-examination,  I  added  :  "  I  think  this 
is  the  first  one  I  ever  made." 

The  Squire  somehow  brightened  up  at 
this. 

"  I  make  very  few  calls  myself,"  he  said  ; 
"  ve-ry  few.  In  fact,"  he  continued,  in  a  burst 
of  confidence  like  my  own,  "  I  don't  think  I've 
made  a  call  in  twenty-five  years — twen-ty-five 
years  !  " 

He  had  a  habit  of  repeating  words,  by  way 
of  giving  a  gentle  emphasis  to  his  speech.  That 
is  a  trick  that  rather  belongs  to  old  ladies  than 
to  old  men.  He  had,  in  truth,  something  of 


SQUIRE   FIVE-FATHOM.  2  29 

an  old  lady's  manner  of  talking,  with  an  occa 
sional  hesitancy  as  though  he  were  not  much 
in  the  way  of  using  his  tongue. 

"  It  must  be  lonely  for  you,  sir,"  I  ventured. 

"  Lonely  !  "  he  repeated,  in  surprise,  "  why, 
no  !  Oh,  dear  me,  not  at  all."  Then  he  re 
flected.  "  Perhaps  it  is,  though.  I  am  not 
sure  but  that  you  are  right.  Yes,  I  suppose 
it  is  lonely.  I  had  not  thought  of  it,  how 
ever." 

He  mused  over  this  new  idea  for  some  mo 
ments. 

"You  see,"  he  began  again,  "one  has  so 
much  to  think  of — so  many  things  to  think  of, 
that  there  is  really  no  time  to  think  of  being 
lonely— aha  !  " — he  laughed  a  crackling,  pleased 
little  laugh — "  d'ye  see  ?  no  time  to  think  of  it 
-aha ! " 

He  smiled  over  his  little  ghost  of  a  joke,  and 
I  laughed  too,  for  I  saw  he  expected  it.  That 
broke  the  ice,  and  we  became  more  friendly. 

"Why,"  he  said,  "there's  many  a  night — 
many  and  many  a  night — when  I  don't  get  to 
bed  before  half-past  eight  or  nine.  But  then, 
you  know,  I  lie  awake  a  good  deal,  in  the 
course  of  the  night — thinking,  too.  I  suppose 
that's  what  keeps  me  awake.  It's  wonderful 
what  a  deal  of  thinking  there  is  in  this  life." 

He  stopped  to  think  over  this,  and  I  hastily 


230  SQUIRE   FIVE-FATHOM. 

took  up  the  conversation,  lest  he  should  give 
over  talking  altogether. 

"  I  suppose,  sir,"  I  said,  "  you  are  a  great 
sportsman?  "  and  I  glanced  at  the  gun  on  the 
wall. 

"Oh,  no  !  "  he  returned  hastily,  "  I  was  fond 
of  my  gun,  at  one  time ;  but  I  have  lost  the 
fancy.  I  have  so  much  else  to  do —  Here 
his  hand  wandered  involuntarily  to  the  heap 
of  clothes  by  his  side — then  it  went  quickly 
back  to  his  lap.  (I  thought  he  colored  faintly.) 
He  looked  at  me  and  then  at  the  clothes  in 
irresolute  hesitation,  and  at  last  said  anxiously : 

"  Would  it  disturb  you  if  I  were  to  continue 
my  work?  It  need  not  interrupt  our  conversa 
tion  in  the  least,  I  assure  you." 

"  Oh,  please  don't  stop  for  me,  sir,"  I  cried, 
much  shocked  at  the  idea.  (It  is  within  the 
memory  of  the  present  generation  that  it  was 
once  held  improper  for  little  boys  to  disturb 
the  occupations  of  their  elders.) 

"  Thank  you,"  he  said  gravely,  and,  lifting 
a  faded  coat  from  the  heap,  he  laid  it  across 
his  lap,  and  began  sewing  a  worn  velvet  collar 
upon  it. 

"  I  must  have  it  ready  for  Sunday,"  he  said  ; 
"  pray  converse." 

I  stared  at  him  and  forgot  my  manners. 

"  Is  it  your  coat,  sir?  "  I  asked. 


SQUIRE   FIVE-FATHOM.  2$l 

"  It  was  my  father's  coat,"  he  replied  ;  "  but 
I  have  cut  it  over  for  myself,  and  it  fits  me 
very  well — very  well  indeed." 

Every  child  is  something  of  a  snob,  and  I  do 
not  think  we  can  fairly  blame  the  child.  We 
must  consider  that  he  has  only  material  stand 
ards  of  comparison  ;  that  a  fine  coat  is  to  him 
clearly  and  naturally  an  object  of  admiration, 
while  it  may  take  a  lifetime  to  learn  the  beauty 
of  an  ethical  virtue  ;  that,  moreover,  he  is,  by 
the  necessity  of  his  condition,  a  dependent,  a 
pauper,  who  has  not  yet  worked  for  his  free 
dom  and  his  self-respect.  I  felt  ashamed  of 
my  hero--when  I  saw  him  making  over  his 
father's  old  clothes  for  himself. 

But  he  was  unconscious  of  my  secret  con 
demnation,  and  he  went  on  cheerfully : 

"  I  should  prefer  to  patronize  the  tailor  in  the 
town — the  little  tailor  from  Germany,  I  mean. 
He  is  a  worthy  man,  and  it  is  our  duty,  of 
course,  to  encourage  the  industries  of  the 
place.  But  my  income,  owing  to  circumstances 
which  occurred  very  long  ago — very  long  ago 
— is  limited,  yes,  quite  limited." 

Whatever  I  may  have  felt  in  my  small  secret 
heart,  I  was  mannerly  enough  to  keep  it  to 
myself,  and  even  to  feign  an  interest  in  the  old 
gentleman's  confidences;  for  he  went  on  to  tell 
me  with  some  pride  of  his  achievements  in  tail- 


232  SQUIRE   FIVE-FATHOM. 

oring,  and  of  the  almost  inexhaustible  stock  of 
garments  which  his  father  had  left  behind  him 
— garments,  he  assured  me,  much  finer  in  fab 
ric  and  workmanship  than  anything  that  later 
days  could  produce.  The  interest  at  last  be 
came  real,  in  spite  of  myself,  and  although  I 
felt  that  my  sympathies  were  low  and  repre 
hensible,  when  the  Squire  (with  grave  apologies 
for  the  informality  of  the  act)  took  off  his  old 
coat  and  tried  on  -his  new-old  coat,  I  helped 
him  with  conscientious  criticism  on  the  set  of 
the  back  and  the  fulness  of  the  skirts. 

We  got  to  be  quite  easy  and  friendly  with  aH 
this,  and  when  we  heard  a  knock  at  the  door 
I  hastened  to  save  my  host  the  trouble  of 
opening  it. 

"  It's  only  an  Indian,  sir,"  I  reported,  with 
easy  contempt. 

This  may  sound  like  a  startling  announce 
ment  ;  but  it  was  no  painted  brave  who  stood 
before  me.  It  was  only  a  very  old  Reservation 
Indian,  hideous  and  wrinkled.  Yet  he  was  no 
darker,  no  more  coarse  of  hair,  and  but  little 
dirtier  than  any  one  of  the  French  Canadians 
who  lived  on  the  outskirts  of  the  town.  I  knew 
him  for  an  Indian  only  by  his  high  cheek-bones 
and  his  tall  hat.  I  regarded  him  with  scornful 
disgust ;  but  it  was  only  because  I  conceived 
that  to  be  the  feeling  which  an  American  boy 


SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM.  233 

ought  to  bear  toward  a  colored  person  who 
could  not  speak  English,  and  who  lived  by 
selling  baskets  and  feather  fans  and  bunches  of 
Seneca  grass. 

"  It's  Abe,"  said  the  Squire.  "  Come  in, 
Abe." 

Abe  came  in,  thrust  an  empty  basket,  into 
the  Squire's  hand,  and  stood  still  and  silent 
regarding  me.  One  of  his  eyes  was  wholly 
blinded  by  a  cataract ;  the  other,  as  if  it  were 
uncomfortably  conscious  of  having  to  do  double 
duty,  rolled  about  in  a  grewsome  way.  With 
this  eye  Abe  examined  me,  and  there  was  no 
friendship  in  his  look. 

The  Squire  took  the  basket  and  put  into  it 
some  packages  which  he  took  from  a  corner 
cupboard,  talking  all  the  while  in  a  tone  of 
cheery  affability,  of  which  I  thoroughly  disap 
proved.  The  Indian  responded  only  by  half- 
audible  grunts,  which  might  have  meant  either 
Yes  or  No. 

"Ah,  Abe,"  said  the  old  gentleman;  "and 
how  is  Abe  to-night  ?  How  is  the  back,  Abe  ? 
Did  you  have  any  difficulty  in  rinding  your  way  ? 
It's  getting  dark."  (I  had  noted  this  as  I  opened 
the  door,  and  I  had  a  twinge  of  conscience.) 
"  Here's  the  bacon,  Abe,  and  the  beans,  and  the 
tea ;  but  I  can't  let  you  have  more  than  a  quar 
ter  of  a  pound — you'll  have  to  put  catnip  with 


234  SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM. 

it.  And  you  have  a  little  sugar  left,  have  you 
not? — ah,  yes,  a  little  sugar  left.  Well,  that 
will  have  to  do  for  the  present,  till  better  times 
come,  Abe." 

Then,  with  a  kindly  pat  on  the  back,  Abe 
was  dismissed ;  but  on  the  threshold  he  paused 
and  turned  to  say  : 

"  Um  biddle  new  house  this  side  town." 

"Yes,  yes,  Abe,"  said  the  Squire,  with  a 
smile  on  his  lips  and  a  sad  look  in  his  eyes, 
"  it'll  come,  it'll  come.  They  will  recognize 
our  advantages  some  day,  never  fear." 

And  Abe  vanished  into  the  stormy  twilight 
that  was  fast  settling  down. 

"  Abe  was  my  body-servant  when  I  was — 
when  I  was  a  young  man,"  said  the  Squire. 
"  He  taught  me  to  shoot — yes,  to  ride  and  to 
swim.  We  were  great  friends,  Abe  and  I. 
And  now  he  is  old  and  half  blind,  I — I — we 
help  each  other  along — yes,  help  each  other 
along." 

I  had  taken  my  hat  to  go,  but  the  Squire 
did  not  notice  me.  He  had  gone  to  the  fire, 
where  he  lifted  the  lid  of  the  pot  to  glance  at 
its  contents.  Then  he  sat  down  on  the  low 
chair  I  had  just  quitted,  and  talked,  half  to  me, 
half  to  himself.  At  first  he  recalled  the  days 
of  his  hunting  and  fishing  with  Abe,  and  lin 
gered  over  their  common  scrapes  and  adven- 


SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM.  235 

tures.  Then  he  began  to  speak  of  his  father 
— in  a  lower  tone,  almost  reverential  in  its 
fondness — and  at  last  he  began  the  story  of 
the  wreck  of  the  old  man's  great  ambition. 
I  stood  with  my  hat  in  my  hand,  ready  to 
take  my  leave ;  but  I  could  no  more  have 
gone  home  than  if  I  had  stood  on  Robinson 
Crusoe's  island,  and  looked  over  his  shoulder 
at  the  footprint  on  the  sand.  I  heard  the  pat 
ter  of  the  first  rain-drops  on  the  one  window 
ot  the  cabin,  and  the  growling  of  the  distant 
thunder  ;  I  heard  the  full  rush  of  the  summer 
storm  break  upon  us,  and  the  rain  pouring 
gusty  torrents  upon  the  roof;  but  I  stayed  and 
listened  and  forgot  all  things,  for  my  excited 
spirit  was  back  in  Myndert  Gerrit's  world,  in 
Myndert  Gerrit's  generation. 

****** 

"  But  it  will  all  come  back  some  day,"  he 
said,  as  he  made  an  end  of  the  story;  "some 
day  Congress  will  recognize  the  vast  import 
ance  of  this  location,  and  build  the  pier  we 
have  asked  for.  And  then  it  will  be  only  a 
question  of  time — only  a  question  of  time — till 
they  enclose  the  whole  harbor.  And  then — 
and  then — which  is  the  better  site — I  ask  you 
on  your  honor,  sir,  on  your  honor  as  a  gentle 
man,  which  is  the  better — this,  or  that?" 

He  stretched   out  his   long   right    arm  and 


236  SQUIRE  FIFE-FATHOM. 

pointed  to  the  new  town,  with  an  infinite  con 
tempt  on  his  fine  old  face.  His  eyes  glowed  ; 
his  voice  had  grown  deep  and  hollow  and  firm 
once  more. 

"  Some  day  we  shall  get  the  appropria 
tion— 

"  But  we've  got  it  now,"  I  broke  in,  speaking 
for  the  first  time. 

"  What — what  do  you  mean,  sir?  " 

"  We  got  the  appropriation  yesterday.  I 
heard  father  say  so  last  night — I  mean,  Mr. 
Tappan  told  father." 

He  caught  at  the  sleeve  of  my  coat  with  his 
bony  fingers. 

"  What  do  you  say,  sir?     Say  it  again,  sir !  " 

"  I  heard  Mr.  Tappan  tell  father  that  we  got 
the  appropriation  yesterday — yes,  and  he  said 
something  about  three  hundred  thousand  dol 
lars,  too,"  I  asserted  with  vigor. 

"Tappan, "he  said;  "  they  ought  to  know. 
You  aren't  mistaken  ?  Say  it  again  !  " 

His  voice  had  now  grown  tremulous.  He 
was  standing  erect,  trembling  with  an  excite 
ment  that  frightened  me.  As  well  as  I  could, 
I  repeated  the  brief  conversation  between  the 
mayor  of  the  town  and  my  father.  He  heard 
me  through,  I  thought,  though  his  eyes  glared 
straight  ahead,  as  though  he  heard  some  dis 
tant  sound.  Then,  when  I  ceased,  he  turned 


SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM. 

away  from  me  and  fell  on  his  knees  by  the  side 

of  the  bed,  burying  his  face  in  his  faded  coat 

#*•*##•# 

He  knelt  there  so  long  that  I  was  frightened, 
and  after  awhile  I  touched  him  gently  on  the 
shoulder.  He  arose  with  a  start,  and  I  saw 
that  he  hardly  knew  where  he  was.  Then  his 
look  fell  upon  me,  and  an  expression  of  com 
punction  came  over  his  face. 

"  My  poor  boy,"  he  said,  "  I  have  been 
shamefully  careless — shamefully  careless.  You 
should  have  been  at  home  long  ago.  How 
have  I  treated  the  messenger  of  good  tidings  !  " 
He  smiled  again,  and  this  time  not  only  with 
his  lips.  There  was  a  light  in  his  eyes  that 
almost  made  me  think  him  young. 

"  You  cannot  go  home  by  yourself,"  he  said  ; 
"you  must  let  me  go  with  you."  With  this 
he  bustled  about  and  brought  from  a  corner 
a  great  mohair  cloak  with  a  cape  to  it.  The 
cape  he  took  off  and  fastened  over  my  should 
ers.  Then  he  put  on  the  cloak,  and  we  set 
forth. 

"  I  would  ask  you  to  stay  and  sup  with  me," 
he  said,  "  but  I  fear  your  parents  might  be 
anxious :  so  we  will  postpone  that  pleasure — 
we  will  postpone  it." 

As  we  walked  along,  he  held  my  hand,  and 
occasionally  patted  it  gently.  He  kept  his 


238  SQUIRE   FIVE-FATHOM. 

face  lifted  somewhat  toward  the  sky,  although 
the  rain  beat  on  it.  I  thought  it  must  be 
unpleasant  for  him ;  but  when  he  glanced 
down  at  me  I  saw  that  he  was  smiling. 

We  came  soon  to  the  dark  lane,  and  here  he 
gently  insisted  upon  carrying  me.  I  made 
some  protest ;  but  he  lifted  me  up,  and  I  felt 
the  muscles  of  his  arm  like  a  bar  of  iron  under 
my  thighs.  His  tall  figure  swayed  a  trifle ; 
but  he  set  a  firm  foot  upon  the  slippery  ground 
under  the  trees,  and  in  a  little  while  we  were 
in  the  high-road.  I  got  down  then,  and  we 
walked  together  to  my  father's  door.  My 
heart  was  beating  hard— harder  than  when  I 
set  out. 

I  am  afraid  it  would  have  gone  hard  with 
me,  for  it  was  past  six,  and  the  maid  was  dis 
charged,  and  my  mother  wellnigh  in  hysterics, 
and  my  father  just  setting  out  with  a  lantern 
.to  call  the  neighbors,  when  we  arrived.  But 
the  Squire  took  so  much  blame  upon  himself, 
and  pleaded  for  me  with  such  courtly  and  gen 
tle  grace,  that  my  parents  contented  themselves 
with  harrowing  my  feelings,  which  were  sore 
enough  already,  and  so,  when  my  mother  and 
I  had  wept  enough,  I  was  forgiven,  and  the 
Squire  went  back  down  the  dark  highway.  He 
would  not  be  persuaded  to  stay  to  supper. 
"  His  own  was  waiting,"  he  said.  Perhaps  he 


SQUIRE   FIVE-FATHOM.  239 

found  in  his  thoughts  better  company  than  we 
could  offer  him. 

That  evening  I  told  my  tale,  and  it  excited 
interest  enough  to  satisfy  even  a  boy.  When 
I  came  to  the  part  about  the  tailoring,  my 
mother  drew  in  her  breath  as  though  she  were 
in  pain. 

"  Oh,"  she  cried,  "  I  wish  we  could  do  some 
thing  for  him  ;  but  I  suppose — 

My  father  shook  his  head. 

"  We  could  only  wound  him." 

The  comments  of  my  parents  on  the  whole 
story  cleared  my  infant  mind  of  one  set  of 
snobbish  ideas,  and  I  perceived  that  even  old 
coats  and  Indians  were  entitled  to  respectful 
consideration  from  a  white  American  boy  who 
was  still  walking  around  in  the  clothes  his 
parents  had  bought  for  him. 

Nor  was  it  long  before  Abe  and  I  were 
friends.  This  friendship  came  as  a  corollary 
to  my  greater  friendship  for  his  patron.  I  was 
allowed  to  visit  the  Squire  at  all  proper  times 
and  seasons,  and  there  grew  up  between  us  a 
strong  attachment.  This  association  was  of 
infinite  value  to  me,  and  I  humbly  trust  that 
it  brought  some  pleasure  into  the  dear  old 
gentleman's  life.  It  certainly  drew  him  some 
what  nearer  to  his  fellow-men.  On  dark  even 
ings  he  would  walk  home  with  me,  and  stay  to 


240  SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM. 

chat  with  my  father  for  a  half-hour.  Never 
could  he  be  prevailed  upon  to  share  our  even 
ing  meal,  save  on  a  formal  invitation  delivered 
the  day  before.  Then  he  would  come  in  his 
best  black  satin  stock  and  his  favorite  coat,  and 
would  hand  my  mother  into  the  dining-room 
with  pomp  and  circumstance. 

On  one  of  these  occasions  we  had  a  Distin 
guished  Guest,  a  Travelled  Celebrity  at  the 
house,  who  fell  in  love  with  the  Squire's  sweet 
and  simple  courtliness.  "  Madam,"  said  the 
Celebrity  to  my  mother,  after  Mr.  Gerrit  was 
gone,  "  I  need  no  inducement  to  avail  myself 
of  the  chance  of  accepting  yoiir  hospitality ; 
but  were  I  invited  to  meet  that  gentleman  who 
has  just  left,  in  the  hovel  of  a  Pawnee  Indian, 
I  would  come,  if  I  had  to  come  from  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope."  This  praise  of  my  idol  so 
filled  my  boyish  heart  that  I  lay  awake  half  the 
night  thinking  of  it. 

As  the  years  went  on,  the  Squire  and  Abe 
took  me  into  their  united  lives,  and  we  formed 
a  triple  alliance.  Poor  Abe's  part  in  this  was 
but  small.  He  lived  on  the  Squire's  slender 
bounty,  and  the  only  "help  "  he  could  give  in 
return  was  a  lively  sympathy  with  his  bene 
factor's  ambition.  Of  this  he  knew  more  than 
I  had  thought  possible.  As  I  grew  older,  and 
acquired  an  intelligent  comprehension  of  the 


SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM.  241 

hope  that  was  the  old  Squire's  life,  I  found 
that  Abe  had  concentrated  all  the  mental  pow 
ers  he  possessed  on  that  one  subject. 

When  I  was  fourteen,  the  great  pier  was 
nearing  completion.  It  ran  northeastward  from 
Far  Point,  and  was  to  be  supplemented  by  a 
similar  structure  extending  due  north  from 
the  eastward  end  of  the  town.  From  the 
mouth  of  the  inlet  we  watched  its  daily  growth, 
expectant  of  an  end  unforeseen  by  the  build 
ers. 

It  was  the  first  warm  day  in  June,  and  the 
three  of  us  sat  on  the  shore.  Abe,  with  his 
head  cocked  on  one  side,  so  as  to  bring  his 
work  within  the  range  of  his  good  eye,  was 
making  a  fleet  of  toy  ships  out  of  the  chips 
washed  to  our  beach  from  the  distant  lumber 
yard.  We  watched  him  intently. 

He  launched  eleven  ships,  and  was  setting 
the  twelfth  in  the  water  when,  of  a  sudden,  he 
turned  his  one  eye  toward  the  lake,  and  with 
his  trembling  thin  brown  fingers  pointed  to  a 
stake  set  amid  heavy  stones  a  hundred  feet 
from  the  shore.  There  the  first  ship  of  his 
fleet  danced  in  the  breeze — danced  out  to  the 
stake — beyond  it — into  how  many  feet  of 
smooth  water  I  know  not ;  for  it  had  not  gone 
two  yards  before  the  Squire  was  laughing  and 

crying  at   once,   I   was  shouting  with    all  the 
16 


242  SQUIRE  F1VE-FATPIOM. 

strength  of  my  lungs,  and  even  the  old  Indian 
had  raised  his  stiff  arms  above  his  head,  and 
stood  swaying  them  from  side  to  side,  thank 
ing  his  Indian  god  after  his  Indian  fashion. 

The  great  pier  on  Far  Point  had  crawled  out 
till  it  stemmed  the  current  and  turned  it  off 
from  the  shore.  With  every  stone  that  should 
be  laid,  with  every  day's  work,  that  terrible 
stream  would  be  forced  further  and  further 
out — further  and  further  away  from  our  level 
shore.  Our  day  had  come. 

The  engineers  had  builded  better  than  they 
knew.  The  old  Gerrit  site  had  been  such  a 
thing  of  tradition,  such  a  futile  memory  of  the 
past,  that  it  had  been  left  out  of  the  towns 
people's  calculations,  and  no  one,  save  the 
Squire,  had  considered  that  the  removal  of 
the  current  from  its  low  shore  must  bring  it 
once  more  into  usefulness.  But  Gerrit's  site 
spoke  for  itself.  The  pier  crawled  out  fifty 
feet  farther  that  summer,  and  the  water  in 
the  inlet  began  to  sink.  No  longer  fed  by  the 
resistless  current,  it  fell  away  in  scattered  pools. 
In  September  I  walked  dry-shod  where  I  had 
waded  ankle-deep  in  June. 

"  Our  time  has  come,"  the  Squire  said,  his 
face  beaming;  "  we'll  buy  the  old  house  back, 
and  when  you  come  to  pass  the  night  with  me, 
my  boy,  remember  that  your  room  is  the  little 


SQUIRE   FIVE-FATHOM.  243 

one  over  the  front  entry — you  won't  forget — 
eh  ? — you  won't  forget  ?  " 

It  was  true  enough.  Something  that  looked 
like  fortune  lay  close  ahead.  The  ship-captains 
brought  the  news  of  the  shifted  channel  ;  the 
towns-folk  came  out  to  look  at  "  the  flats 
a-dryin'  up  ; "  hard-featured  men  of  business 
discussed  the  ways  and  means  of  draining  and 
filling  in.  By  September  there  was  no  talk  of 
building  the  second  pier  between  the  Squire's 
land  and  Gerrit's  Gate  :  it  was  to  go  westward 
from  the  extremity  of  Near  Point,  and  there 
was  to  be  a  Gerrit's  Gate  in  very  deed  between 
the  two  breakwaters,  wherethrough  Prosperity 
should  come  from  the  North,  scattering  plenty 
from  full  hands. 

Of  course  the  lands  should  have  been  sold 
for  taxes,  over  and  over  again  ;  the  Squire  had 
but  the  simplest  notions  of  business,  and  alto 
gether  he  would  have  reaped  little  good  of  his 
fortune  had  not  my  father  and  a  few  of  the 
older  residents  made  a  friendly  league  to  pro 
tect  him.  He  was  deeply  grateful  to  them, 
although  he  had  not  the  slightest  comprehen 
sion  of  what  they  did  for  him.  They  secured 
his  property  to  him,  and  he  sold  his  first  lot  in 
October,  and  marked  it  off  on  his  father's  map. 
He  would  recognize  no  later  survey. 

He  sold  one  or  two  more  lots,  and  then  the 


244  SQUIRE   FIVE-FATHOM. 

sale  stopped.  Nobody  was  willing  to  invest 
money  where  it  could  only  lie  idle  until  the 
completion  of  the  harbor-works  gave  the  new 
port  a  positive  value.  This  grieved  the  old 
gentleman's  soul.  He  had  begun  to  look  upon 
his  father's  old  house  as  his  own  ;  it  seemed  a 
hardship  to  be  kept  out  of  it  another  year  just 
for  the  want  of  a  few  beggarly  thousands  of 
ready  money.  That  was  all  that  he  needed. 
The  present  owner  was  ready  and  willing  to 
sell.  He  was  a  prosperous  Westerner,  who 
had  brought  an  ailing  wife  to  Gerrit's  Gate  in 
the  hope  that  the  strong  lake  winds  might 
strengthen  her.  They  had,  however,  availed 
only  to  keep  her  within  doors  and  make  her 
fretful.  Mr.  Garbutt,  for  himself,  was  dis 
gusted  with  the  whole  town.  He  despised  its 
petty  hopes,  he  laughed  at  its  modest  future ; 
he  called  it  old-fashioned  and  behind-the-times, 
and  he  openly  expressed  his  desire  to  sell  out 
at  cost  and  go  to  some  region  where,  as  he 
expressed  it,  things  was  alive. 

Fifteen  thousand  dollars  would  buy  the 
whole  Point,  and  the  Squire  made  several 
attempts  to  get  this  money  at  a  ruinous  sacri 
fice.  The  friends  who  had  saved  him  before 
stepped  in  and  drove  off  the  sharpers  who 
would  have  taken  advantage  of  him,  and  for 
the  first  time  I  saw  the  old  man  bitterly  and 


SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM.  245 

unjustly  angry.  He  was  kept  out  of  his  house, 
he  cried — why  were  they  keeping  him  out  of 
his  house  ? 

By  November  the  Squire  had  become  so 
fretful  and  unreasonable  that  his  friends  de 
cided  upon  raising  the  money  for  him  at  their 
own  risk.  This  took  some  time.  Money  was 
not  plentiful  in  the  town,  and  it  was  hard  to 
negotiate  a  loan  that  must  wait  a  year  or 
eighteen  months  for  its  interest  and  arrears  of 
interest.  During  the  week  required  for  this 
piece  of  financiering,  I  was  deputed  to  keep 
an  eye  on  my  old  friend,  and  I  passed  most  of 
my  time,  out  of  school-hours,  in  the  little  cabin 
which  the  Squire  had  declared  he  would  not 
quit  until  he  took  possession  of  his  father's 
house. 

The  last  day  of  my  watch  I  went  to  the 
post  of  duty  with  a  heart  less  light  than  usual. 
For  two  days  the  old  gentleman  had  been 
silent,  dull,  and  depressed.  I  wished  the  finan 
ciers  would  hurry  up,  and  let  the  Squire  and 
me  be  happy  and  cheerful  once  more. 

I  was  surprised  to  find  the  Squire  cheerful, 
even  gay.  His  depression  had  vanished.  Had 
I  been  a  little  older  I  might  have  suspected 
the  feverish  excitement  that  had  taken  its 
place  ;  being  only  a  boy,  I  accepted  it  grate 
fully,  and  we  set  about  cooking  our  supper. 


246  SQUIXE   FIVE-FATHOM, 

We  had  royal  suppers  nowadays.  There  was 
a  hot,  peppery  fish-chowder  that  the  Squire 
alone  could  make,  a  great  slice  of  smoked  eel 
broiled  to  a  rich  golden  brown,  and  baked 
potatoes  the  best  in  the  world — baked  in 
the  ashes.  And  new  cider  to  wash  it  all 
down ! 

But  though  all  was  good,  and  I  ate  as  a 
healthy  boy  should  eat,  the  Squire  hardly 
touched  his  food,  and  seemed  to  be  in  haste 
to  make  an  end  of  the  meal.  When  it  was 
done,  he  changed  his  every-day  coat  for  his 
best — the  same  old  best  coat — and  took  down 
his  great  cloak  from  its  hook. 

"  Come,  my  boy,"  he  said  excitedly  ;  "  come 
with  me  !  I've  triumphed  at  last — at  last — at 
last !  " 

"  What  do  you  mean,  sir  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  I've  got  the  money,"  he  shouted,  almost 
like  a  madman.  "  They'll  keep  me  out  of  my 
own  house  no  longer.  I've  got  the  money.  I 
sold  the  water-front  to-day,  my  boy,  and  I've 
got  the  money,  here,  here,  here !  "  and  he 
slapped  his  breast-pocket  with  his  trembling 
old  hand. 

"  Sold  the  water-front  ?  "  I  cried.  "  Oh, 
sir — 

"  Never  mind,  never  mind,"  he  said,  frown 
ing  ;  "  there's  more — there  are  acres  and  acres. 


SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM.  247 

And  what  do  I  care  for  it  all  ?  I'll  have  my 
father's  house  this  night — this  night.  You 
hear  me,  sir !  " 

I  loved  him  well,  but  I  was  only  a  boy,  and 
I  had  neither  the  wit  nor  the  strength  to  com 
bat  his  resolution.  I  felt  that  my  father  should 
be  sent  for,  but  I  knew  that  I  could  not  find 
him  in  time  to  be  of  service.  The  Squire  was 
determined  to  go  to  Mr.  Garbutt  that  night 
and  buy  the  house.  I  spoke  of  necessary 
papers,  but  he  would  have  none  of  them. 
What  did  he  care  for  papers  ?  Let  the  law 
yers  see  to  the  papers  in  their  own  good  time. 
That  was  their  work.  He  would  pay  his  money, 
and  own  his  house.  He  could  not  sleep  in  it  ; 
but  he  would  sleep  owning  it. 

The  northwest  gale  was  a  tempest  when  we 
started  up  the  hill.  It  was  hard  work  to  fight 
our  way  across  its  path ;  and  the  booming  of 
the  great  waves  far  off  at  the  end  of  the  Point 
frightened  me,  long  as  I  had  known  that  dreary 
sound. 

When  the  great  door  of  the  house  opened 
for  us,  and  we  stepped  into  the  broad  entrance 
hall,  we  were  breathing  hard — I  from  exhaus 
tion  ;  he,  I  verily  believe,  from  sheer  excite 
ment.  He  looked  about  him  with  a  wild, 
uncertain  stare.  Perhaps,  for  the  moment,  he 
thought  it  was  a  dream.  Then  he  grasped  my 


248  SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM. 

hand  firmly,  and  stalked  ahead  of  the  servant 
into  the  drawing-room,  avast  apartment  where 
Mr.  Garbutt  sat  in  his  velvet  smoking-jacket, 
grand  and  lonely. 

In  Mr.  Garbutt  I  found  a  friend.  He  was 
short,  he  was  fat,  he  was  vulgar  in  every  stitch 
of  his  clothing;  but  he  had  brains  in  his  big 
bald  head,  and  a  heart  sound  as  the  diamond 
on  his  breast.  The  Squire  stated  his  errand, 
struggling  between  dignity  and  impetuosity, 
and  Mr.  Garbutt  listened,  at  first  in  astonish 
ment,  and  then  with  a  quick  understanding  of 
the  situation,  which  he  promptly  conveyed  to 
me  by  a  quick,  significant  twist  of  one  eyelid. 
It  was  not  even  a  wink  ;  but  I  knew  that  he 
understood.  When  the  Squire  ended,  he  rose 
politely. 

"  Set  down,  Mr.  Gerrit,"  he  said  ;  "  set  down, 
sir.  We  folks  out  West  do  business  putty 
lively,  but  we  ain't  got  to  your  style  of  speed 
yet.  This  thing  ain't  to  be  done  quite  so 
quick." 

The  Squire  forced  himself  to  sit  down. 

"It  must  be  done  to-night,  Mr.  Garbutt,"  he 
began. 

"  It'll  be  done  to-night,"  said  Mr.  Garbutt, 
reassuringly;  "but  it's  got  to  be  done  busi 
ness-like.  I  can't  give  you  a  deed— 

"  Your  word,  your  word,  Mr.  Garbutt,"  cried 


SQUIKE  FIVE-FATHOM.  249 

the  Squire;  "your  word  is  quite  enough  for 
me ! " 

"  Ef  I  sh'd  die  "to-night,"  said  Mr.  Garbutt, 
impressively,  "  my  word  ain't  wuth  shucks  to 
my  executors,  without  papers  to  back  it.  1 
know  them,  'n'  you  don't.  Now,  you  jest  dror 
up  to  that  little  desk  there,  an'  you  write  me  a 
little  sort  of  a  letter,  makin'  me  an  offer  for  the 
prop'ty,  an'  I'll  write  a  letter  acceptin'  your 
offer.  Then  I  can  stow  your  money  away  'n'  feel 
that  all's  business-like  'n'  right.  Mow's  that?  " 

The  Squire  sat  down  at  the  gaudy  little  desk 
and  tried  to  write  ;  but  his  hand  trembled  so 
that  what  he  wrote  (I  have  the  sheet  now)  was 
but  a  tremulous  scrawl  that  no  man  could  read. 

Meanwhile,  Mr.  Garbutt  was  addressing  me 
in  my  capacity  of  guardian. 

"  Know  your  pa,  don't  I  ?  "  he  said.  "  You 
kinder  look  after  the  old  man,  eh  ?  Got  sorter 
crazy  on  this  business,  ain't  he  ?  Well,  you 
tell  your  pa  that  I'll  lock  the  old  man's  money 
up  safe  for  the  night,  an'  he  can  call  'n'  get  it 
when  he  wants  to.  Oughter  have  some  one 
appointed  to  take  charge  of  him.  Heard  he 
sold  out  his  whole  water-front  to-day  to  them 
swindlin'  speculators  from  Buffalo.  Well,  I'll 
fix  him  up  somehow  to-night,  and  quiet  him 
down  a  bit.  Can  you  git  him  home  ?  " 

Mr.  Garbutt  kept  his  promise,  and  he  man- 


25O  SQUIRE   FIVE-FATHOM. 

aged  matters  with  a  skill  at  which  I  marvel  as 
I  look  back  upon  it.  When  the  Squire  had 
finished  his  poor  pretence  of  writing,  the  West 
erner  took  the  scrawled  sheet,  made  an  effect 
ive  pretence  of  reading  it  slowly  and  critically, 
and  then  sat  down  at  the  desk  and  wrote  a 
business-like  acceptance,  which  he  made  me 
read  after  the  Squire  had  looked  at  it.  He 
examined  the  drafts  which  the  Squire  tendered 
him,  and  laid  them  away  in  a  gorgeously  be 
dizened  safe  in  the  wall. 

"  There,"  he  said,  "  that's  settled.  Posses 
sion  in  May,  as  per  my  letter.  But  if  you 
don't  conclude  to  close,  Mr.  Gerrit,  it  ain't  no 
more  than  an  option.  Suit  yourself.  Any 
ways,  we'll  wet  the  transaction." 

He  rang  for  a  servant,  and  had  a  decanter 
of  sherry  and  three  heavy  cut-glasses  set  on 
the  table.  We  must  each  take  a  drink,  to  bind 
the  bargain,  he  said. 

We  filled  our  glasses  and  lifted  them.  Mr. 
Garbutt  and  I  were  about  to  drink,  when  we 
saw  that  the  Squire  held  his  glass  poised  before 
his  lips,  and  that  he  looked  expectantly  toward 
us.  I  did  not  understand  what  this  meant, 
but  Mr.  Garbutt  did. 

"Thinks  he's  at  home,"  he  whispered  to  me, 
with  a  chuckle.  Then  he  inclined  his  head 
toward  the  Squire. 


SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM.  2$  I 

"  Your  health,  Mr.  Gerrit,"  he  said  ;  and  we 
both  drank,  and  the  Squire  after  us,  bowing 
courteously. 

"  I  don't  blame  you,  Mr.  Gerrit,"  said  Mr. 
Garbutt,  lolling  back  in  a  great  velvet  easy- 
chair,  "  for  buying  this  piece  of  prop'ty,  as  a 
matter  of  fancy.  It's  a  first-rate  house,  an' 
a  good  bit  of  land,  I'll  say  that  for  it.  But,  as 
for  me,  this  town  ain't  'live  enough  for  me. 
Mrs.  Garbutt,  she  mostly  goes  to  bed  long 
about  eight  or  ha'-pas'-eight,  an'  I  set  here  'n' 
read  Patent  Office  Reports  till  I  go  to  sleep. 
If  there's  any  society  here,  it  ain't  took  the 
trouble  to  root  me  out." 

Here  he  noticed  that  the  Squire's  glance  was 
wandering  about  the  room.  The  old  man  was 
looking  at  the  unfamiliar  furniture  in  a  puzzled 
way. 

"Things  seem  a  kinder  new,  eh  ^  "  suggested 
Mr.  Garbutt.  "  Well,  I  put  some  money  into 
this  here  set.  Rosewood,  the  hull  of  it.  Good 
stuff — the  best  there  was  when  I  bought  it. 
Maybe  you'd  like  to  take  it  off  my  hands? 
Well,  no,  I  s'pose  not.  Come  pretty  high. 
Well,  now  !  I  hadn't  thought  of  that.  There's 
all  your  old  traps  up  garret.  Found  'em  here 
when  I  come  here,  an'  couldn't  quite  get  a 
straight  title  to  'em  with  the  house,  so  I  packed 
up  these.  Plenty  of  room,  says  I — might's 


252  SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM. 

well  be  filled's  not.  I  didn't  jest  feel  safe  to 
give  'em  away — don't  know  as  anybody  'd 
want  'em.  First-rate  furn'cher,  too ;  but  ma 
hogany — old's  the  hills — out  'f  fashion.  No 
sort  of  good  to  me." 

"  Did  you  say,  sir,"  asked  the  Squire,  with  a 
suppressed  earnestness  that  suggested  a  return 
of  his  earlier  excitement,  "  that  my  father's 
furniture  is  now  in  the  attic  story?  I  should 
greatly  like  to  see  it,  sir — I  should  greatly  like 
to  see  it." 

"  Why,  cert'nly,"  said  Mr.  Garbutt,  rising, 
with  an  uneasy  glance  at  me ;  "  glad  to  have 
you  see  it  if  you  want  to  ;  but  I  don't  think 
you'll  find  any  use  for  it.  Putty  well  eaten  up 
by  this  time,  I  guess." 

It  was  clear  that  the  Squire  had  set  his  mind 
on  it,  in  spite  of  anything  that  his  host  could 
politely  suggest,  and  as  soon  as  Mr.  Garbutt 
could  procure  a  hand-lamp,  we  began  the  toil 
some  ascent  of  the  back-stairs.  Here  the  win 
dows  faced  the  north,  and  caught  the  fury  of 
the  storm.  The  external  wall  of  the  house 
fairly  shivered  as  the  recurrent  blasts  struck  it, 
and  the  strong  wind,  coming  in  through  the 
cracks  of  the  windows,  set  our  lamp  flickering. 
I  was  second  in  our  line,  and,  looking  over  my 
shoulder,  I  saw  the  Squire's  familiar  face  dis 
torted  in  the  wavering  light.  Up  and  up  we 


SQUIRE   FIVE-FATHOM.  253 

mounted,  until  we  crawled  through  a  narrow 
hole,  and  a  smell  of  dry  dust  and  seasoned 
wood  told  us  that  we  were  in  the  garret. 

Mr.  Garbutt  lifted  the  lamp  above  his  head. 
Its  light  illumined  but  a  small  space  in  that 
great  chamber  under  the  roof.  It  fell  upon 
the  old  furniture  of  the  old  house — great  pieces 
of  solid  mahogany,  of  broad  and  generous  lines. 
The  cushions  were  moth-eaten  and  faded  to 
the  color  of  the  dust  that  covered  the  polished 
wood.  Still  there  was  a  stern  dignity  about 
their  dishonored  forms,  almost  a  sentient  re 
sentment  of  the  indignity  put  upon  them. 
"  First-class  furniture — in  its  time,"  said  Mr. 
Garbutt,  as  if  he  felt  the  need  of  apology. 

The  Squire  said  nothing.  He  walked  among 
the  flickering  shadows,  and  looked  from  one 
thing  to  another  with  a  steady  gaze.  Once  or 
twice  he  laid  his  hand  on  some  table  or  chair, 
and  I  thought  that  he  had  a  particular  reason 
for  doing  so. 

After  he  had  seen  all  that  lay  within  the 
light  of  Mr.  Garbutt's  lamp,  he  came  back  to 
where  we  were  standing,  and,  laying  his  hand 
on  my  head,  gently  stroked  my  hair.  He  must 
have  stood  thus  full  a  minute,  while  neither 
Mr.  Garbutt  nor  I  spoke.  Then  he  turned 
aside,  and  going  to  the  west  window  (he  walked 
through  the  darkness  as  one  who  knows  his 


2 54  SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM. 

way)  he  opened  it  and  looked  out.  I  followed 
him,  and  looked  over  his  shoulder. 

The  Squire  looked  out  upon  the  same  view 
on  which  his  father  had  gazed  when  the  fort 
unes  of  the  Gerrits  were  at  their  height.  Only 
now  he  could  see  nothing  of  the  plain  of 
promise  upon  which  his  father  had  rested  his 
eyes.  All  below  us  was  hid  in  blackness. 
Looking  toward  the  west,  we  could  see  the 
mad  turbulence  of  the  bay,  and  just  beyond  it 
a  line  of  clear  white — a  line  that  came  and 
went,  was  broad  and  dazzling  for  a  second,  and 
then  narrowed  into  darkness.  It  was  the  sea 
breaking  on  the  great  pier. 

As  we  stood  there,  we  could  hear  nothing 
but  the  deafening  roar  of  the  wind  as  it  rushed 
in  great  shuddering  blasts  through  the  window. 
Then,  as  the  ear  grew  accustomed  to  the  noise, 
we  caught  the  tremendous  undertones  of  the 
storm,  and  at  last  could  distinguish  the  heavy 
fall  of  each  successive  wave  upon  the  far-off 
pier. 

I  was  gently  drawing  the  Squire  away  when 
there  came  one  of  these  falls  so  tremendous 
that  it  seemed  as  though  the  house  shook  in 
answer  to  it.  We  all  stood  still,  and  then  came 
a  second  shock  so  awful  that  our  very  thoughts 
stood  still,  and  we  were  like  stunned  men  for 
the  moment.  When  we  turned  our  eyes  to  the 


SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM.  2$$ 

window,  we  saw  the  line  of  white  for  the  last 
time;  a  fainter  sound  of  falling  billows  reached 
our  ears,  and  we   saw  only  the   confused  tur 
moil  of  dark  waves  where  the  pier  had  been. 
****** 

"  Where  is  the  old  man  ?"  Garbutt  asked,  a 
moment  or  two  later ;  and  we  both  listened. 
"  Great  God  !  "  he  cried,  "  where  is  he  going?  " 

We  could  hear  his  footsteps  going  down  the 
uncarpeted  stairs,  and  we  followed  him  as  fast 
as  we  could  ;  but  he  was  outside  before  we  got 
to  the  outer  door  at  the  foot. 

Garbutt  tried  manfully  to  run,  but  he  had 
no  strength  for  such  a  race.  I  was  strong  and 
swift,  for  my  age,  and  I  ran  at  full  speed  down 
the  winding  path,  and  in  the  first  flash  of  light 
ning  saw  the  Squire  far  below  me,  rushing 
down  the  hillside,  through  the  trees  and  over 
the  rocks — taking,  as  I  saw  him,  a  leap  that 
would  have  killed  any  sane  man. 

He  was  far  ahead  of  me  when  I  reached  the 
level  of  the  shore.  I  had  lost  him  in  the  dark 
ness  ;  but  a  great  wave  rolled  up  a  wall  of  light, 
and  against  it  I  saw  the  Squire's  form,  with  his 
arms  raised  high  above  his  head.  He  ran  upon 
the  wave  ;  I  saw  him  beat  his  arms  against  it 
as  if  to  drive  it  back,  and  then  the  wave  melted 
into  the  night,  and  when  the  next  wave  came 
I  could  not  see  him. 


256  SQUIRE  FIVE-FATHOM. 

It  was  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  when  I 
again  came  to  the  place  with  the  searching 
party.  A  dim  sun  shone  from  the  east  over 
the  heaving  waters.  Against  its  light  we  saw 
Indian  Abe  coming  up  from  the  lake,  along 
the  edge  of  the  flooded  inlet,  bearing  on  his 
back  his  master's  body. 


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